


Why be a servant to the law, when you can be its master?

by fortunehasgivenup



Category: Good Girls (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternative Universe - FBI, Angry Stripping, Attempted Rape/Non-Con, Attempted Sexual Assault, Bartenders, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Gun Violence, Hand Jobs, Implied/Referenced Torture, Masturbation, Multiple Orgasms, Murder, Oral Sex, Organized Crime, Orgasm Denial, Overstimulation, Undercover, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-10
Updated: 2020-12-14
Packaged: 2021-03-05 21:34:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 19
Words: 67,019
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25822210
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fortunehasgivenup/pseuds/fortunehasgivenup
Summary: FBI Agent Beth Boland hasn't been undercover as a bartender for long before one of Detroit's kings of crime begins making her life infinitely more complicated. As her supervisors press her to pursue Rio, she gets to know more about him until she isn't sure who she can trust anymore.Sooner or later, she's going to need to make a choice.
Relationships: Beth Boland/Rio
Comments: 642
Kudos: 1055





	1. Narc

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Introductions are made.

Beth wipes at the bar, scowling at the little bit of something that just won’t come off.

“Hot water,” Jessa suggests.

Beth raises her head. “What?”

“Dip the rag in hot water, it’ll soften it up,” Jessa explains, hoisting a flat of waters onto the counter to start stocking the fridge. Beth’s only been working at the bar for a couple of weeks, but she’s already decided that she wants to be Jessa when she grows up because the other woman’s biceps are probably the most impressive that Beth has seen in her whole life.

She does as Jessa suggested and grins when it finally comes up. “Thanks,” she says, spraying the bar with sanitizer.

“You’ll get used to it,” she assures Beth, “and I’m sure you’ll get your own tips and tricks. People always do.”

Beth smiles at her. “Well, I’ll try to live up to your belief in me.”

Jessa just laughs.

A few hours later, the bar’s busy, but the bar’s pretty much always busy to some extent. At least according to the books it is.

One of the regulars, Jake, leans over the counter towards her. He’s only about 40% drunk, so she doesn’t bother waving over one of the guys that hangs out by the door, seemingly waiting for someone to step out of line. 

Teri, the bar’s owner, had explained to Beth that she shouldn’t be afraid to call them over if she ever needed help.

“That’s what they’re there for,” the older woman had told her on her first day of work.

Beth finishes pulling a pint and slides it over to Reggie, who drops a bill in the tip jar and winks at her. He’s 80 and he’s here with his wife, so Beth winks back. "Yes?" she says to Jake.

“How come you’re so nice to Reggie?” Jake complains.

Beth meets his eye. She’s learned a lot, over the years, about how to judge books by their covers. She’s known plenty of Jakes. He’s still got some of the muscles left from whatever sport he played in high school, but they’re disappearing. He drinks too much and takes his wedding ring off before coming into the bar most nights.

He tries to flirt with her, most likely because the others have already shut him down enough times that he’s stopped pestering them.

“Reggie’s a sweetheart,” Beth tells him with a shake of her head and a soft laugh. “Plus, he and Miriam give me hope that some people can make it, you know? They’re so sweet.”

Jake frowns. “You’ve got a boyfriend?”

Jessa slips in behind Beth. “None of your business, Jake,” she tells him. “Beth’s busy.”

Beth shoots Jessa a smile, glad when the other woman sends her to grab some things from the back.

The shift feels long and by the time they get to last call, Beth feels like she’s dragging.

“You’ve got the day off, yeah?” Jessa asks, even though she’s the one that makes the schedule.

“Yeah,” Beth calls out, lifting chairs up so the floors can be cleaned easier.

“Got plans?”

Beth moves to the bar to start restocking for the next shift. “Meeting up with a friend for brunch. Well, lunch for most people, breakfast for me.”

Jessa laughs. “Yeah, the schedule’ll do that to you.”

They fall into a companionable silence as Beth cleans and Jessa counts the cash and balances receipts.

“Jake giving you trouble?” Jessa asks when Beth finishes up.

“Nothing I can’t handle,” Beth replies.

Jessa doesn’t look like she quite believes it. “Look, if anyone’s giving you problems or a weird vibe, just tell me or one of Rio’s guys.”

Beth’s ears perk up at that.

“Who?” she asks. “Teri mentioned the name once, but never said who he is.”

“You’ve actually seen him before. Tall, lean, has the throat tattoo. The guys who sit near the door? They work for him. They keep an eye on things and since you work here, you count under things they’re keeping an eye on,” Jessa shuts the register, “so if someone’s giving you trouble, we say something to them. That person doesn’t come around anymore.”

Beth swallows, nods. “I’m a thing, huh?”

Jessa chuckles. “If you’d ever met the guy, you might understand that it’s pretty much a compliment.”

“I’m learning all kinds of stuff today, aren’t I?” Beth jokes, changing the subject.

Driving the short distance to her apartment, Beth groans at the thought of being up in a few hours. She’s tired. Not just physically, but emotionally too.

There have been moments at the bar when her hands have twitched, longing to reach for what’s normally on her belt.

Her gun.

Her badge.

But these days, she’s not Beth Boland, freshly divorced FBI agent. She’s Beth Marks, a bartender who doesn’t say much about what she’s been up to, but no one really asks because they don’t care.

Her apartment is a third floor walkup, which feels like it’s fifty floors after a long shift, but apartment hunting with the budget of what she could make as a bartender had been…less than pleasant. In comparison to a couple of the places she’d gone to see, she’s happy with what she wound up with.

She glares at her neighbour, Steven, who comes out of his apartment sometimes when the stairwell door opens. Every alarm bell in Beth goes off at the sight of the guy, but mentioning him to Phoebe, her handler, had just earned her a snort.

“You aren’t there to catch weirdos and pervs,” Phoebe told her. “You’re there for Anton Rossi.”

Steven withdraws back into his apartment like a turtle into its shell, but she can feel his eyes on her when she walks past his door. Once she’s inside, she locks the door and forces herself to go through her bedtime routine.

Heavy makeup off. Hair released from whatever ponytail it’s wound up in. Face washed and moisturized. Normally she’d take a shower, but with the meet scheduled for the morning, there’s no way she’s staying up even a minute longer.

She collapses into bed and falls asleep instantly.

—————————————

The next morning, Beth slips into the booth across from Phoebe Donnegan and smiles at her. “Hello friend.”

“Friend,” Phoebe responds before shoving most of a donut into her mouth.

Beth shakes her head and orders french toast and a cappuccino for herself.

“Anything to report?” Phoebe asks.

“Not really,” Beth says with a sigh. “I’ve seen a bunch of the faces that you told me to keep an eye out for, but the bar doesn’t exactly give me the opportunity to talk to them.”

“No?” Phoebe looks surprised. “Isn’t that what bartenders do? Talk to people.”

“You have an over simplistic view of the profession,” Beth drawls, smiling at the server when she brings Beth’s cappuccino to the table. “You do realize that I have to serve everyone that comes into the bar, right? Not just people that are relevant to the investigation.”

“Really?” Phoebe opens her eyes really wide.

“C’mon,” Beth says, “what’s up at work?”

“Turner’s banging around, complaining about everything again,” Phoebe replies, dumping three things of sugar into her own black coffee. “I swear, I’m gonna kill him myself.”

“If you need an alibi, let me know,” Beth tells her.

Phoebe just sighs. “Apparently Rio - or one of his guys - shut down an op that Turner was closing in on. Months of work, gone.”

Beth whistles. “Bad luck or do they think he’s got an idea of what they’re doing?”

“Who knows?” Phoebe shrugs. “Not like they tell me shit. There’s a reason I’m getting your reports and not running an operation, no offence.”

“Full offence taken,” Beth retorts. “Sides, who knows how this will go. Maybe I’ll get us the golden ticket right up the promotional ladder.”

“You been sampling confiscated narcotics?” Phoebe asks, picking up her bagel and ripping a piece off.

Beth just rolls her eyes. “Rio’s actually come into the bar a couple of times,” she says.

Phoebe perks up. “Oh?”

“Not often, I’ve only seen him two or three times.”

“Which is it?” Phoebe asks.

Beth tilts her head.

“Two or three? Don’t be playing the “I don’t pay attention” game with me,” Phoebe says. “I know you remember exactly how many times you’ve seen him. You probably remember what days it was too.”

Which…fair. Beth remembers all of that plus more. She’s got a good memory and she’s trained herself to pick up on details.

“Three,” Beth admits. “Never stayed for longer than two drinks. Twice, he left with women. The third time, he was accompanied by some of his buddies and I got the impression that their night was just starting.”

Phoebe nods. “There it is. He why you think you can get us promotions?”

Beth laughs, taking her hands off the table when the server returns with her breakfast. She’s quiet for a moment as she pours syrup on.

“Be careful,” Phoebe warns softly when Beth starts to cut her french toast. “There’s a reason that they don’t send in agents to try and get in with him anymore. A reason you’re working on Anton Rossi and the money laundering.”

“You just don’t want to deal with the paperwork if I died,” Beth jokes, ignoring the seriousness of Phoebe’s reminder.

The other agent just nods. “Yeah and I’m bad at funerals. Did I ever tell you about the time at my great-aunt’s funeral when I accused her husband of poisoning her? I mean, I was right, but apparently that’s not the point.”

Their conversation stays lighter throughout the rest of breakfast, but when they part with a semi-awkward hug - Phoebe’s terrible at them, no matter how much Beth tries to get her to relax - Phoebe squeezes her arm.

“I’m serious, Beth. Watch out.”

Then she’s gone, back to her life, the office, the Bureau.

And Beth? Beth’s stuck in this halfway world. Suspended animation, just hoping that when she tries to go back to her life, enough of it’s still there to mean something.

Returning to her apartment, Beth misses her old place. Sure, it had been shared with Dean, but she’d had a nice bed. A full sized couch. A _dog_. How sad was it that she missed Buddy more than she missed her ex?

Not for the first time in the weeks since this operation began, Beth wonders if she had made the right choice. She wants to pick up the phone and call Annie or Ruby and complain about how much her feet hurt. Ask them about their days. Wanted to go for a friendly coffee that wasn’t a status report.

But she’s supposed to keep contact to a minimum and Turner had already reprimanded her for making too many personal phone calls.

What would she tell them anyways?

She can't tell them about work, so the bar would be off limits. And what else has she got going on right now? A whole lot of nothing. Maybe she should get a cat, convince the Bureau that it’s part of her cover.

She drops onto her futon and grabs her laptop. She’s taken to watching YouTube videos in her spare time, hoping to make her hair do something halfway nice that’ll actually stay in place for a full shift, rather than the ponytail that seems to be constantly slipping.

When Beth agreed to go undercover, she’d had no real idea of how it would wind up unfolding. She’d done it before, of course, they weren’t going to throw just anybody onto a laundering case like this one, but not quite like this op. 

There was no going home at night, no taking off the disguise for weekends. She was supposed to be visible. Normal. Vulnerable. It wasn’t just a matter of living her regular life and switching between the roles. As it was, she wasn’t even sure how long she would be undercover.

There’s stories about people being undercover for years and Beth wonders if that’s what’s in store for her.

No, she decides. Even though Rossi is smart in his dealings, he’s not a criminal mastermind. He’ll slip up eventually. The money he’s washing through the bar is already straining the bounds of believability and sooner or later, he’ll push it too far.

Unless Rio intervenes, of course. She’s pretty sure he’s more than capable of cutting ties. Sometimes more smoothly than others, but he’s always out at least a step before anyone can get him on a damn thing.

Rio wasn’t even supposed to be in her sights. When she’d called him the golden ticket, it hadn’t been a joke. Bring that man down and the Bureau would give you whatever you wanted.

“If you’d ever met the guy, you might understand that it’s pretty much a compliment.” That’s what Jessa had said when Beth had bristled at being called a thing.

Beth hadn’t replied to that, but she checks it against what she knows of the guy and she can see why Jessa would say that. He owns things and once they’re his, they’re his. She doesn’t think he’s lost so much as a block of territory since he took his position.

Shaking her head, she tries to push out all thoughts of the man behind that name and focuses on braiding her hair.

By the time she’s falling into bed, she’s mostly managed it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to medievalraven and neveroffanon who beta'd this and have been helping me work on this fic for months at this point! Title is a line from Point Break.
> 
> So welcome to the undercover AU! It's all written and I'll be posting new chapters once a week. Some chapters will have more specific warnings in the notes, so please keep an eye on them. I’ll be adding to the tags as well. If there's ever anything that you feel I should also be warning or tagging for, please let me know.


	2. Dead Drop

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Beth and Rio meet.

He’s here tonight.

Rio.

He’s big enough these days at the Bureau that it’s all you need to say. Like Madonna or Cher.

Just Rio.

He has a last name. Beth even knows it. But there’s something about thinking of his full name that makes it - makes him - too real.

She’s not even supposed to be worrying about him. He’s not her job. Her job is gathering intel on this bar, one of his many businesses. 

Not that his name’s on the lease. Anton Rossi’s name isn’t either.

Rio’s been in a couple of times since Beth started, always with one of his boys - though never Anton. Drinks on the house, they retreat to the corner with Teri for a bit. Afterwards he normally sticks around long enough to find someone to take home with him, then he’s gone.

Tonight, he’s early. And alone.

“What is it about that guy, Rio, right?” Beth asks Jessa quietly as she dries glasses. “Teri said to treat him right, but she never said why.”

Jessa glances up. “He’s none of your business.”

“Ah,” Beth says. “Got it.” She’s not playing dumb here, so now that Jessa’s given her a hint, Beth can take it.

He doesn’t stay for long, but on his way out, he stops by the bar.

Jessa smiles at him bigger than Beth’s ever seen her smile for anyone.

“How you doing?” he asks. He’s got one of those almost smoky voices, low and deceptively soft.

“We’re doing just fine,” Jessa tells him. “You met Beth yet?”

Rio’s eyes flick to her. “No. Teri said she’d hired someone new though.”

Beth holds her hand out. “Beth.”

“Rio.” His hand is big, swallows hers up as he shakes it. “You new to the area?”

Beth shrugs. “Depends which area we’re talking about and what counts as new.”

He chuckles. “Oh?”

She smiles at him. “About eight months.”

“That counts as new,” Rio comments, then pushes back from the bar. “Take care of yourselves,” he tells them before he leaves.

“You had a thing with him?” Beth asks Jesse when it quiets down.

Jessa frowns. “Huh?”

“With Rio. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you smile that much,” Beth teases.

“Nah,” Jessa shakes her head, “nothing like that. He took care of something for me.”

Beth lifts an eyebrow and waits.

“My ex-husband,” Jessa admits after a pause, “he wasn’t a good guy. It wasn’t easy leaving. Just after I started working here, he came in and tried to make me go back home with him. Rio and a couple of guys were here and they made sure that he never, ever bothered me again.”

Beth doesn’t have to fake her widened eyes. “They killed him?” she whispers.

Jessa shakes her head. “He’s alive. He just knows not to bother me now.”

That’s the end of the conversation until they’re locking up.

“Look,” Jessa grabs Beth’s forearm, “leave Rio alone. He’s a good guy, helped me out when I needed it and has kept checking on me. I know I’m not the only one either. But he’s dangerous. He thinks you’re asking too many questions or ones that he doesn’t like, getting fired will be the least of your problems.”

Beth swallows. “And if I just think he’s pretty?”

Jessa laughs. “Then I’d still recommend staying away. You’ve seen the women that get one taste of him and then come back to the bar practically begging for more. He’s kind of a dick, maybe great dick, but he’s pretty much one and done. Don’t shit where you eat.”

Beth nods. “Thanks,” she says, meaning it.

“I like you, Beth,” Jessa says, leading the way to their cars. “You’re sensible and you work hard, and you keep your mouth shut about your own life. It’s a good quality to have in a job like this.”

There’s a good reason for that, Beth thinks to herself.

“Well, I like you too,” Beth responds. “I think I want to be you when I grow up.”

Jessa looks taken aback. “What?”

“You kidding, those biceps of yours?” Beth pokes her in the arm. “The way you boss everyone around and they just do it? You’re pretty great yourself.”

“Oh.” Jessa looks pleased by the compliment, but doesn’t continue the conversation. “Night Beth. Get home safe,” she says, stepping away to get into her car.

They leave the parking lot together, something Beth had learned the first night that she worked. It had surprised her, learning the ways that the other bartenders had been spending years looking out for each other in a way that felt so foreign to her.

“We watch each other’s backs,” Court, another bartender had explained, “out here and in there. So get used to it.”

Beth was used to having her fellow agents, highly trained men and women, behind her. But that had often felt begrudging or impersonal. They were supporting an agent, not Beth. Most of them saw one another as competition at least to some degree - for promotions, accolades, and respect.

She drives back to her apartment and stays upright long enough to shower the shift off, then collapses into bed.

Sleep doesn’t come right away though. Beth lies there, thinking about what Jessa had told her about Rio. About what Phoebe had told her just a few days before, him shutting down operations in a blink. The board in Turner’s office with details of the crimes the Bureau was pretty sure he’d committed. The list had included murder. More than one. They’d been nasty too.

He’s dangerous, that’s what Jessa had said, and the Bureau agreed. Rio had been running things a little too well for comfort. Beth had heard a couple stories - earlier attempts to bring him down that had kind of tapered off because he was small time. And then, all of a sudden, he was everywhere but nowhere. Investigators swore he was involved with their cases, but came up empty every time. He was like a ghost.

Phoebe had compared him to an oiled eel at a meeting once.

“We think we’ve got him,” she’d said, holding her hands up like she was holding onto a rope, then squeezed them shut, “but then he’s gone.”

He wasn’t even her assignment. Rio was big, a career maker. Or career ender, depending on how it went. There were rumours of dead undercover agents in his organization, but nothing concrete. Those bodies didn’t show up. Presumed dead, that’s what they were. Beth didn’t want Annie to have to deal with that, never knowing what had happened to her.

No, Beth was supposed to be focusing on building a money laundering case against Anton Rossi, just another cog in the machine. Rio himself never touched any of the money. He didn’t bring it in, didn’t do drops or handoffs. He was always just a step away from anything criminal. Even if she were to prove that he’d beat up Jessa’s ex, hell, most people would probably think he’d done the right thing.

Beth wasn’t even sure he’d done the wrong one. Years of working in law enforcement had taught her a lot, but one of the ones that stuck with her was _all you’ve got is you_. No one would have given Jessa the help that she needed through proper channels. Maybe she could have successfully applied for a restraining order, but it wouldn’t have done a whole lot to protect her from her ex.

From the minute that Turner had pulled up a surveillance shot of Rio, Beth had felt a flutter in her belly. He was good looking. Not to mention _smart_. You didn’t get to where he was by being a fool. Biting her lip, Beth recalled how his hand had felt swallowing hers up. His skin had been warm and -

She rolls so her face is buried in her pillow and she screams into it. She needs to get laid. But now that she’s undercover, there’s all kinds of ethical issues to consider. If she sleeps with someone she comes into contact with as Beth Marks, bartender, she’s lying to them. Sleeping with someone from her actual life would mean going back to someone like her ex-husband. Neither option is attractive.

There is a third option. Just going out. Drink a little, dance a lot, find someone who doesn’t care about who she is or what she does. Go home with them or find somewhere with a door and a lock.

Lifting her head from her pillow before she suffocates, Beth decides that a night out is just what she needs. She’s got a day off coming up that doesn’t have a check-in with Phoebe scheduled. She should probably also make sure she’s living enough of a life that the people at work don’t think she’s a total shut-in. Maybe she can mention that she’s going out to one of the others.

Even as she thinks it, her mind provides her with another image of Rio, another feeling - this one imagined. That hand, that big hand with those long fingers, pushing her thigh open with a chuckle. If people came back looking for a second shot with him, he had to be good in bed, right?

Just the way he moved through the bar was graceful. It had taken Beth a moment to figure out what it was that made it seem like he was just flowing from place to place, but it had eventually clicked. It was this sense that he was moving with purpose. He knew where he was going and how he was getting there. Focus was another word for it.

Imagining that focus directed towards her…Beth swallows.

“No,” she says out loud. “He’s probably selfish,” she tells herself, “and says that he won’t wear a condom because it ruins the feeling for him.”

As soon as she says it, she feels certain that it’s not true, but moreover, she feels slightly bewildered by her choice of tactic. Rio is not a good person. She’s seen crime scene photos that attest to that. Even if he hadn’t personally committed those murders, he’d ordered them. But rather than reminding herself of that, she’d gone right to how he was in bed.

The reminder of those crime scene photos turns Beth’s stomach briefly. They’d been violent, even the bloodless ones. Not to mention the fall out of the things that he brought into the city. Lives ruined, families affected.

No one really knows where he got his start, which means it was probably bloody. Maybe even more so than usual. Name changes are always possible of course, but every lead has gone straight to a dead end. Almost like everyone who had known Rio and where he came from had disappeared from the face of the earth. 

“That’s what happens when the community you’re working in doesn’t want to help itself,” Turner had said as she was prepping to go undercover. “Misguided senses of loyalty.”

But if what he’d done for Jessa wasn’t a one-off, it doesn’t surprise Beth that Rio’s got a whole lot of loyalty. People don’t forget who helps them when shit happens and it was very rarely the police or the FBI or any other type of law enforcement. It was their community.

Beth has met more than her fair share of dealers, gang members, criminals of all shapes and sizes. Despite her own upbringing having not been exactly sunshine and rainbows, she had still joined the Bureau with an idea of what the criminals she was going to meet would be like. And the Bureau hadn’t tried to make it any less black and white, even as Beth had been confronted with shade after shade of grey.

The kid who had needed to step into a parent’s shoes, grow up too fast, getting a fifteen year sentence before they finished high school.

The money laundering cases that seemed to taper off whenever the names involved got too important. When they started looking like a politician’s donor list.

The guy who had spent his whole life in one neighbourhood, who knew everyone and was always teasing and joking, even as he funnelled narcotics into the vulnerable.

The men that had deserved to be arrested for sex trafficking, who had always managed to slip out of their hands with a few well placed complaints, that she’d later seen on television, announcing quarterly earnings in an industry meant to bankrupt people.

The companies that had started the opioid epidemic and made billions.

More and more lately, she’d been feeling disillusioned with her job. It felt like rather than stopping the leaks in the boat, they were just blaming the water even as they bailed it out, tossing it back into the ocean.

Beth groans. Even her metaphors are getting jumbled. She needs sleep. She needs rest and a reminder of why she does her job. Closing her eyes, she starts to time her inhales and exhales, lengthening them slowly until she finally succumbs to sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to medievalraven and neveroffanon who beta'd this and have been helping me work on this fic for months at this point! Title is a line from Point Break.
> 
> As I mentioned in last week's chapter, it's all written and I'll be posting new chapters once a week. Some chapters will have more specific warnings in the notes, so please keep an eye on them. I’ll be adding to the tags as well. If there's ever anything that you feel I should also be warning or tagging for, please let me know.


	3. Turncoat

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Someone from Beth's old life pushes her closer to Rio.

Beth laughs at Courtney’s story, shaking her head at how ridiculous the other girl can be. Someone had once referred to Annie as half wild. Courtney, in that case, was full wild. She's also quite possibly the most competent manager that Beth has ever had.

“What about you?” Court asks. “Jessa says you’re single.”

Beth rolls her eyes. Jessa’s been prying into her private life more and more. “Yes, I’m single,” she replies, checking that the bar’s stocked, even though she checked it five minutes ago and all either of them has done since is pour a beer.

“On purpose?”

“On purpose?” Beth repeats. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Court leans against the bar next to Beth, a solid five inches taller than her even in flat sneakers. “You’ve got your single people that desperately want to be in relationships. You’ve got the ones who very loudly insist that they’re happy being single but are secretly bitter about it. Then the ones who are single by choice.”

“There’s got to be more types than that.”

“Those are your choices. Pick one,” Court says, only for her smile to switch over to her customer service expression. “I’ll get this one.”

It’s a slower night, which isn’t unusual for a Wednesday. It’s the only reason she’s actually able to notice when the door opens and a familiar face steps in. Beth’s heart seems to stop, even as she moves to leave the bar area.

“Are you good?” Beth asks Court, turning her back towards the door.

Court knows something’s wrong, but seems to recognize that Beth can’t talk about it. She nods. “If Mika’s here, send him out a little early, yeah?”

Beth jerks her head up and flees to the hallway that leads to the bathrooms and the storage area that doubles as a break room.

She takes a few steps down the hall, not really looking, only to stop when she nearly barrels into someone.

“Oh, sorry!” she starts to apologize, tilting her head back only to realize that her night has gone from bad to worse.

It’s Rio.

She swallows.

“Aren’t you supposed to be working?” he asks.

Part of Beth is about to tell him that bathroom breaks are a thing and that she’s also legally entitled to breaks as well, but she has no idea how he’ll react.

“My ex just came in,” she blurts out.

He seems just as surprised by her outburst as she is. He looks over her head. “Yeah?” He lowers his eyes back to her. “Didn’t end well?”

“Do you consider divorce ending well?” she asks, crossing her arms over her chest. She leans against the wall, kind of hoping that he’ll walk past her out to the bar, where he must have been going.

“He an asshole?”

This is the most that Rio’s ever said to her before, but she’s so caught up in the fact that somewhere behind her, Dean might be settling in for a long night of drinking with his buddies.

Dean, who knows she’s an FBI agent. Fuck, it’s part of the reason they broke up in the first place. Or at least, according to him it was.

Beth nods. “He cheated on me. Several times. And by times, I mean separate women. I assume several times with each,” she can’t stop herself from talking. “Caught him with his 20-year old secretary. Sorry, admin assistant.”

She’s not expecting Rio to laugh. “Shit,” he chuckles, “sounds like a charmer. Need me to knock him around a little?”

He’s smiling as he says it, but Beth has this feeling that he’s being serious. If she says yes, he’ll go out there - whether by himself or with a couple of his guys - drag Dean out behind the bar and hurt him. She’s seen what it looks like when Rio knocks someone around a little.

And he’ll do it all because she works for him and she asked him to.

“No,” she says firmly. “Although I appreciate the offer. I’m trying to be the bigger person. I mostly just don’t want him to see me. I don’t need that, not right now.”

Rio jerks his chin up, which is apparently agreement. Beth’s opening her mouth to say thank you when she hears a loud voice from the end of the hall calling out that he’ll be back in a minute.

Beth stiffens, her eyes widen. “That’s him,” she says. Fuck. She and Rio are standing between Dean and the men’s room. The lighting is low, but he’s gonna see her if she doesn’t haul ass. But Rio’s still standing there, looking up over her head.

“What’s he do?” Rio asks, casually.

“He sells cars,” Beth hisses. “Look, can I -“

Instead of letting her past, Rio turns so that he’s facing her, trapping Beth between him and the wall. “Try not to hit me,” he says, making absolutely no sense until his lips come crashing down onto hers. Beth’s mouth opens in shock and he deepens the kiss, one of his big hands coming up to the side of her neck.

Beth’s so shocked at first, that she barely even registers how it feels to be kissed. It’s been a while and she’s not sure that anyone’s kissed her like Rio’s doing right now, like he’s trying to consume her. She shivers, pressing her breasts into his chest and arching her back a little.

He takes the invitation and his other hand hoists her up enough that her feet aren’t on the ground anymore and she has to wrap her legs around his slim hips as he tilts his head.

“Get a room,” Beth hears, but it’s muffled, like she’s hearing it through cotton. Rio doesn’t pull away from her, just pushes even closer and grinds into her.

Beth moans, her hands going to his shoulders.

The friction of him, even through two pairs of jeans, is exquisite. Realizing that she can feel his cock, that he’s getting hard, Beth digs her fingers into him and groans.

He responds by pinning her there with only his hips, so that both of his hands are on her neck, her chin.

It feels better than anything has in a long time and Beth’s going to come in her own jeans from letting her boss grind her at work and - she freezes.

Rio isn’t her boss. Her boss is Agent James Turner. Rio is a violent criminal.

He senses the change in her and pulls away. He glances in both directions. “Looks like your ex is gone, but you should head out the back,” he tells her, stepping away. “Go home.”

Beth’s about to protest, but Rio gives her a look that tells her not to bother, so she nods and flees.

Thankfully, Mika’s killing time before his shift starts and she’s able to send him out to help Court.

She’s shaking the whole way home. She’s almost convinced herself it’s nervous energy from having to deal with almost getting her cover blown by her douchebag of an ex, but the second she locks her apartment door, she’s undoing her jeans and slipping her hand inside.

Beth moans as she glides her finger back and forth across her cunt. When she pushes it inside, she’s so wet that it’s an easy slide and she barely even feels it. She inserts a second and it’s better, but her mind supplies her with how Rio had felt pressing against her. He had felt thick, like he would have stretched her out deliciously.

She tries pressing a third finger in, but it’s not as easy, especially considering she’s still wearing her jeans and underwear. Cursing, she pulls her hand out and goes to her bedroom, shedding clothes as she goes until she’s just wearing her bra.

Collapsing onto her bed, Beth works two fingers back in, teasing with a third.

_“Need me to knock him around a little?”_ She can hear him saying it over and over in her head as she stares at the ceiling.

Soon, she’s fucking herself with three fingers. She wishes they were longer, capable of going deeper. Rio’s fingers on her face had been gentle, but what would they feel like if he put them inside of her? Would they still be gentle? Or would he be ruthless, making her come fast, wanting to get her ready for him?

Beth moans as she starts to come, riding her fingers until she’s limp and exhausted.

When she pulls them out, she whimpers.

“Fuck,” she mutters to her ceiling.

In theory, Beth knows that loyalty goes both ways, but in an organization like the FBI, it was nearly impossible to come by. Sure, there was trust on specific cases, had to be. But Beth wasn’t even sure she could remember the last time that a superior went to bat for her.

But Rio, he’d listened to her for a minute and he’d been ready to beat up a guy on nothing but her word. Not to mention how good it had felt when he kissed her.

Shaking her head, she forces herself into the shower, needing to wash off the night.

It doesn’t work.

Instead, her head just replays the kiss over and over. How he had pinned her to the wall with nothing but his hips.

_Need me to knock him around a little?_

She scrubs at her hands and arms. What had he been thinking when he kissed her? Had it just been helping her out? Or had he gotten just as lost in her as she had in him?

Had he wanted to keep going?

It’s a useless question to consider, but it doesn’t stop her from trying to pick apart the interaction as she moisturizes and puts on her pajamas. There’s no way she’s getting to sleep soon, so she goes to make herself some chamomile and a small snack.

She just wants to talk to someone so badly. Someone who knows Beth, the real Beth. Not just work Beth or undercover Beth. 

There’s two people that she goes to when things are like that.

It’s late. With Sara, Ruby’s got a bad enough sleep schedule. But Annie would be awake.

Beth goes to her closet and reaches up into the little space between the shelf and the wall where she’s wedged her phone. She puts in the SIM card and turns it on. Although she dials Annie’s number as soon as it does, it takes her a minute to press call.

“Hello?”

Annie sounds wide awake.

“Hi,” Beth sighs.

“Jesus fucking Christ, Beth,” Annie says. “Where have you been? You stopped calling and -“

“My superior told me I was calling too much,” Beth cuts her off. “I had to cut back.”

“Are you okay? You’re safe?”

Beth’s not used to being the one getting asked this kind of question. Normally she’s the one asking Annie.

“I’m okay, Annie,” she assures her. “I can’t talk long. Just wanted to talk to you for a bit. How’s Sa-”

“Ben,” Annie cuts her off. “He’s going by Ben now.” Beth blinks. Fuck, how much was she missing that she didn’t even realize? “He’s good. I’m good, Ruby and Stan and Sara are good. When are you coming home?”

It’s the question that Beth hates the most. The reason she hasn’t really pushed back against Turner’s demand.

“Can we not talk about that?”

She hears Annie sniffle. “I guess. Shit, I miss you. No one’s around to judge me into eating fruits and vegetables.”

Beth laughs. “Thought the kid was doing that for me.”

“Oh, the kiddo is, but it’s not as effective coming from someone who calls them vegebles.”

It sucks, missing these moments. When Annie had gotten pregnant, Beth’d taken some time off work to help with the newborn and sometimes, late at night, she’d wonder if she could do it - bring someone into this world with everything that she knows about it.

She still wasn’t sure, really. She’d just known that if she was going to do it, it wouldn’t be with Dean.

“How’s pre-school going?”

That gets Annie talking about how impossible it was to get Ben dressed for school most mornings up until she’d figured out that he wanted to wear jeans.

“So we did a little shopping,” Annie laughs, “and now I’ve got a shoe box full of little bowties. It’s the cutest thing.”

“Take pictures for me?” Beth asks.

“Lots of ‘em,” Annie promises. “Trust me, Ruby and I have a slideshow ready when you come back. You’re going to get a play by play of every time one of these kids so much as blew their nose.”

Beth grins. “Good. I’ll take a vacation and you can show it to me.”

They talk a little bit longer, but there’s not much that Beth can say about herself, what she’s up to. It’s enough to just hear her sister’s voice.

“I should let you go,” Beth says eventually. “You have work in the morning.”

“Ugh,” Annie groans, “don’t remind me. I swear to fucking god, Boomer’s somehow even worse ever since he started going to church on the regular. Keeps trying to get me to go with him! Last time I told him no, guess what he said!”

“What?”

“He said, “What about your sister? She’s gotta be lonely and desperate, right?” I almost hit him. You would never be that desperate.”

“I sure hope not,” Beth replies. “If I am, you can take me out behind the barn and put me down.”

“Aye aye, ma’am,” Annie agrees cheerfully.

“I love you, Annie.”

There’s a long sigh on the other end. “I love you so much, Beth. Finish up this case and come home safe, okay? I need a hug from my big sister.”

“And I need one from my little sister and her amazing child.”

“Damn right, Ben’s amazing,” Annie agrees. “You’ll be careful?”

“I always am,” Beth responds, kind of telling the truth. She’s as careful as she can be most days, but the nature of the job is so far removed from careful that it seems almost ludicrous to think of herself being careful. “You too, okay?”

“Always.”

After Beth hangs up, she resets the phone then turns it off and removes the SIM card. She’ll need to replace it. This one, she smashes, then puts it in her purse to take care of in the morning.

Talking to Annie seems to have done the trick and distracted her enough to fall asleep. She doesn’t wake up until her alarm goes off.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to medievalraven and neveroffanon who beta'd this and have been helping me work on this fic for months at this point! Title is a line from Point Break.
> 
> As previously mentioned, it's all written and I'll be posting new chapters once a week. Some chapters will have more specific warnings in the notes, so please keep an eye on them. I’ll be adding to the tags as well. If there's ever anything that you feel I should also be warning or tagging for, please let me know.


	4. Wire

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Beth sees something that she shouldn't at the bar.

The next time that Beth sees Rio, she nearly drops to the floor behind the bar. But it’s like he doesn’t see her, just does some complicated hand clasp hug thing with one of his guys, then takes a seat.

Anton’s here at the same time as him for once, something that hasn’t happened before, at least not while she was working. She isn’t sure if it’s an attempt for Rio to keep the business at arm’s length or if maybe he doesn’t care to spend time with Anton, but they aren’t very buddy-buddy in the way that Rio is with some of his guys.

She shouldn’t be surprised by Rio’s non-reaction to her. Girls are always coming back to the bar, looking for a second time with him and he’s never given any of them a second glance. Not that she had sex with him. It had just been a kiss.

A really, really good kiss.

At least, from Beth’s point of view it had been. Had he thought she was a bad kisser?

He nods to her and Court behind the bar on his way out, a while later, like nothing had happened.

And really, Beth reminds herself, nothing did. So what if he’d nearly gotten her off with nothing but his lips on hers and the hardening line of him pressed against -

Court snaps her fingers in front of Beth’s eyes. “You good?”

Beth nods. “Just tired. My neighbours are having relationship trouble.”

“Oh,” Court winces. “You got earplugs?”

“Can’t sleep in ‘em,” Beth admits.

“Well, let’s hope they either kiss and make-up or just give in and break up,” Court says.

Rio comes in twice more that week. In that time, Beth makes a bit of headway on her actual case and meets up with Phoebe once more.

“Surveillance says he’s been at your bar more than usual,” Phoebe says through a mouthful of bagel. “Something going on?”

Beth shrugs. “On the business side of things? No clue.”

Phoebe’s brow goes up. “And on the personal side of things?”

“Even less of a clue,” Beth replies.

She doesn’t mention that he hasn’t been taking people (women) with him when he leaves the last few times he’s been in.

That night she thinks about what it means that he’s coming to the bar more. She hadn’t really thought much of it, knew that he visited the places he used to funnel cash and goods. But sometimes he’d come in multiple nights in a row, not even meeting up with Teri.

No one had said anything outright about it being odd, but what did it mean? Was he about to pull the plug on the bar? Take over? She can tell that Jessa isn’t sure how to take it, but her worry always faded away if she saw that Beth was looking at her.

Beth falls into an uneasy sleep.

Despite how little she actually managed to sleep, Beth doesn’t feel overly tired when she heads to work the next day.

She’s opening, which means she doesn’t have to stay until close, a rare treat for a weekend night.

She can play some music that she actually enjoys while she checks the float and turns stuff on, puts chairs back down onto the floor. It’s not like anyone’s around to see her dancing around to “If You Wanna Be My Lover” as she moves from table to table.

The bar’s busy enough from the minute that Beth opens the doors that she barely notices Mika arriving a couple of minutes late, and it doesn’t slow down.

She barely registers it when Rio comes in, just makes his usual on autopilot and gets Mika to take it over before shifting her focus back to their actual customers.

Finally, there’s a lull.

“Better take a break now,” Mika tells her.

Beth doesn’t even argue. “I’ll bring more napkins when I come back,” she says, stepping out from behind the bar and heading to the back room. She just wants to sit down.

She doesn’t realize that anyone else is there at first, doesn’t think about the fact that the door’s unlocked until she hears a moan from behind the shelves.

Fuck, she thinks. Someone left the door unlocked and now she’s going to have to spend her break chasing out some horny couple and -

She peers through the gap in the shelves, recognizing the man instantly.

Beth freezes, watching Rio kiss the woman. She’s a tiny little thing and he’s got her hoisted up against the wall, legs wrapped around him.

He pulls away and says something that makes the woman laugh, only to break off with a loud moan.

It’s then that Beth realizes they’re not just kissing.

Her eyes widen as she watches him press his hips into the woman. He’s not just grinding against her, like Beth first thought. He’s actually fucking her, his jeans open just enough to pull himself out, the woman’s dress pushed up around her hips. Had he torn her panties off? Just shoved them aside? Had she even been wearing any?

She swallows, mesmerized by Rio’s movements, the way he’s got the woman moaning and jerking against him.

The woman’s moans are getting louder and she’s starting to move her hips more, Beth can see. Her head falls back and thumps against the wall as she starts to come, arms flailing as she tries to hold onto Rio’s shoulders.

Beth steps the tiniest bit closer as Rio’s pace picks up. He’s practically slamming into the woman now as she gasps with every slap of his hips. Beth knows, instinctively, that Rio’s looking for something else, something a little bit more.

Her lips fall open and she licks over them.

Rio moves, putting his head between Beth and the woman, blocking Beth’s view of her. But that isn’t what makes her heart stop.

Rio turns his face until he’s looking right at Beth through the shelf. He knows she’s there. He can see her. He’s making eye contact with her as he pushes in one last time and comes with a grunt. He doesn’t look away from Beth and when he pulls out, lowering the woman’s legs back to the ground, he grins at her.

Beth flees and finishes her break in the alley behind the bar, trying to get her breathing back to normal.

She doesn’t think that she’ll see Rio again for the rest of the night, but when she returns to the bar, he’s sitting there, by himself, like he’s waiting.

“Elizabeth,” he greets her.

“Rio.”

He smirks. “Have a good break?”

Beth’s glad that the bar is relatively dark, although there’s still a good chance he can see her blush.

“Nothing special about it,” she tells him sweetly.

He laughs. “No?”

She shakes her head. “Nope,” she says. “Just making some plans for tomorrow night.”

“Oh?”

She doesn’t answer the question. “Did you want another?”

“Nah, I’m heading out,” he responds. But he gives her a long look that lingers at her breasts before he turns and leaves. Beth feels hot for the rest of her shift, the memory of Rio’s eyes tracing a path over her body.

She heads home even more sure that she needs to hook-up with someone. Needs to feel hands that aren’t hers. Hopefully they’ll erase how Rio’s had felt that night when he’d pressed her into the wall, although she doesn’t have the highest of expectations. Needs to feel a different set of lips on hers, remember what it’s like to kiss someone other than him.

Beth rubs herself off in the shower, shaking a little with the aftershocks. She remembers the grunt - barely more than an exhale - that he’d let out as he came. She hadn’t seen his cock, but she’d felt it against her when he kissed her. If the woman’s moans were anything to go by, he knew how to use it too. The thought has her running her palm against her clit lazily.

She’s spent more time aroused and pursuing orgasms in the last week than she had for the months prior to this assignment. And that’s bad. That’s very, very bad. Rio, while not _her_ target, is someone with all kinds of eyes on him. While thinking about something isn’t the same thing as doing it, coupled with Rio’s increased presence at the bar…Beth’s not sure that she’s entirely in the right frame of mind.

But she has a plan. She’s going to go out. She’s going to find someone who can help her work this out of her system and then she’s going to be able to focus on her actual job. The one that she’s spent years chasing and fighting for.

It’s going to be fine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to medievalraven and neveroffanon who beta'd this and have been helping me work on this fic for months at this point! Title is a line from Point Break.
> 
> As previously mentioned, it's all written and I'll be posting new chapters once a week. Some chapters will have more specific warnings in the notes, so please keep an eye on them. I’ll be adding to the tags as well. If there's ever anything that you feel I should also be warning or tagging for, please let me know.


	5. Concealment

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Beth finally gets her night out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: Beth's creepy neighbour tries to grab her.

Beth has never been one for clubbing, not even when she was newly twenty-one. It had always just seemed so…expensive. You had to have outfits, shoes, make-up and hair to match. And then you had to pay cover fees and buy drinks. And. And. And. It all added up. Which isn’t to say she hasn’t done it. She has. Some of it was for fun, but some of it had been stings.

So she knows how to get dolled up, how to make her eyelashes look gigantic, how to spend ages making her hair look like she’s just rolled out of bed. She’s got a couple of tight sparkly dresses and she grabs the dark blue one that Annie had convinced her to buy last year for her birthday. She’d worn it once and then never again.

At least this way, Beth can tell Annie about going clubbing the next time that she calls her.

Pushing aside the pit in her gut, Beth shimmies into the dress. She checks in the mirror to see whether or not her bra is showing. Although it isn’t a big deal if it is because she’s gone all out and is wearing matching lingerie.

Court had offered some suggestions of clubs to check out, complete with rankings of the type of guy who frequented each place.

Beth had decided on one that Court had described as “too classy for the real young ones, but not so expensive that the guys buying you drinks get real pushy.” Her heels may not be super high, but they’re also not comfortable to walk in and she doesn’t want them to hurt before she even gets to the club, so she grabs an Uber.

The bouncer waves her through and Beth heads inside to the bar. Court had been right about the atmosphere of the place. It looks like if you turned the lights on, you wouldn’t recoil. There’s a dance floor, already in use, and plenty of seating. 

Habit has her scanning the space, making sense of it in case she needs to move quickly. Her eye is drawn to a set of stairs that seems to lead up to a half floor positioned over the bar like a balcony. The heavily tinted windows suggest an office or a VIP area. Something for someone who wants to see without being seen.

Sure of the exits and entrances of the place, she slides into a just vacated spot at the bar.

She’s about to order a bourbon when a guy basically reaches over her to get the bartender’s attention.

“Gin and tonic and a -“ he leans down, “what are you having, sweetheart?”

Beth half turns so that she can get a good look at him. He’s tall and although blonde isn’t her usual type, none of this is her usual thing. She smiles. “Bourbon.”

He lifts an eyebrow but repeats the order to the bartender and passes over some cash.

“Not one for the fruity drinks?” he asks.

Beth laughs, only faking it a little. “The mark up on them is insane. They’re mostly sugar,” she informs him, “which hides the amount of liquor that’s actually in ‘em. People drink more of them and get drunk without even really noticing. I prefer simple.”

He grins back at her, leaning against the bar. “Let me guess,” he says. “You’ve spent time bartending.”

It’s then that Beth realizes that she’s sharing a lot without thinking about it. She just shrugs one shoulder, then accepts the drink that the bartender slides over.

“‘M Charlie,” he says.

“Lizzie,” she replies. Close enough to her real name that she’s used to it and that, should she encounter someone who knows her, they won’t be thrown by it.

“And what are you here for, Lizzie?” he asks, giving her a cocky grin. He’s got a beard, another thing that Beth had thought she wasn’t into until recently. Now she wants to know what it feels like to have one in between her thighs.

She cocks her head as she sips her drink, swaying a little. “I was hoping to have fun.”

He laughs. “Am I ruining your fun?”

Beth shakes her head. “Although it depends on how good of a dancer you are.”

“Drink up,” he tells her, draining his glass. “I’ll show you.”

Beth finishes her bourbon and sets the glass on the bar, lets Charlie take her hand and draw her onto the dance floor. He’s not half bad, she quickly learns. He doesn’t do the things she hates, like grinding too soon against her, trying to get his thigh in between her legs. Instead, he stays close but not too close.

Anyone watching can see that they’re dancing together, but they don’t have their hands all over each other. Not yet anyways. As one song leads into another, Beth steps closer to him.

Charlie takes it as an invitation to drop a hand to her ass and pull her all the way to him. He leans down and when she doesn’t push him away, he kisses her.

She can’t help but compare him to Rio. While he’s a good kisser, he doesn’t light her up the same way that Rio had. But there’s enough there that Beth wants more. She wants Charlie’s hands on her breasts, inside of her. They’re big, like she wants.

Beth kisses him back and lets the hand resting on his chest slide down until it’s hovering at his belt. Charlie pulls back to chuckle.

“You want it, huh?” he says into her ear.

She nods.

“C’mon then.” He takes her hand again and pulls her through the crowd until they reach the staircase that Beth had noticed earlier. There’s a bouncer at the bottom of it, but he steps aside for Charlie with a nod.

It isn’t an office behind the tinted glass, but rather a series of smaller rooms. Some of them must be occupied, but Charlie draws her into an empty one and when he closes the door, it’s actually almost quiet.

“Good soundproofing,” she comments.

He laughs. “Yeah the sound system out there’s not really built for conversation,” he remarks.

“You own the place?” Beth asks.

“No,” he tells her, drawing her towards the couch. “Friend of the owner.”

“Must be nice,” Beth drawls.

“It has its perks,” Charlie says, then kisses her. He pulls her down onto the couch so that she’s nearly sitting on his lap, but her back is propped up by the couch arm. One of his hands starts to slide up the inside of her thigh. “Like when I want to fuck a beautiful woman.”

Beth wants to tell him that it’s not exactly enjoyable to be reminded that the guy you’re about to have sex with does this often, but she doesn’t really care and she wants it too.

So she puts her hand on top of his and leads it a little higher.

“I like bold women,” Charlie murmurs, nudging her panties aside. “This all for me?” he asks, finger dipping into her wetness before diverting to her clit.

No. And while Beth’s wet, she’s not that wet, not as wet as she’d been when Rio kissed her or when she’d seen Rio fucking that woman in the storeroom and - there it is, she gets wetter at the thought of him.

Charlie grins like it’s because of something he did and Beth smiles back. Don’t think about Rio, she tells herself.

He’s slipping a finger inside of Beth when the door opens and the music gets louder.

There’s a couple of cheers, then a voice saying, “Are you fucking serious, man?” It’s a voice she recognizes and it makes Beth stiffen as Charlie pulls back.

“Oh fuck off, Rio,” Charlie shoots back, giving him the finger. “Sorry sweetheart,” he turns back to Beth, “we’ll move somewhere a little more private.”

But Rio’s already meeting her eyes and he seems to jerk when he recognizes her.

“Elizabeth,” he says.

Charlie straightens. “You know him?”

Beth nods. “He comes into the bar I work at sometimes.”

Rio and the others he’s with have taken this as a sign that they’re welcome to join the two of them and they all move into the room. The music softens when the door is shut again.

Rio settles into a chair across from Beth, who's still sitting half in Charlie’s lap. She shifts so that her legs aren’t over Charlie’s anymore and she tugs the hem of her dress down. It doesn’t do much, there’s not much material to stretch.

“Ah,” Charlie says.

“This the friend you mentioned?” Beth asks him. “The owner?”

He nods. If Beth had to describe his facial expression, she would say that he looks put out. He’s probably had at least one woman bail on him the second that Rio came into her sights.

Beth just smiles at him and lowers her eyelashes a little so she can look up at him. He’s the one she’s interested in. He’s the one who she picked, the one who’s going to give her what she needs, the one to fuck her. Never mind that it had taken the thought of someone else - _that_ someone else - to make her wet. Charlie grins back before looking at Rio.

“Didn’t know you’d be by tonight,” Charlie says.

Rio shrugs. “I didn’t have plans,” he replies, eyes flicking to the hand that Charlie’s got on her bare thigh. “And Eddie hasn’t been in since the remodel.”

“Looks good,” someone - Eddie, must be - comments. He’s also looking at Beth, but it’s with interest. She’s seen him at the bar plenty of times with Rio, but they hadn’t exactly done introductions.

“So how did you two meet?” Rio asks.

Beth’s cheeks get hot. What’s she supposed to say - that he bought her a drink and she’s horny? Luckily, Charlie saves her from that.

“Saw Lizzie at the bar,” Charlie answers, “in this dress.”

There’s a chuckle from some of the others, but Rio, if anything, has gotten angrier. “That right, Lizzie?” He says the name with a hint of disdain.

Charlie nods, seemingly not picking up on Rio’s mood. Beth can feel it like an electric current filling up the room. She swallows and shifts, drawing his attention back to her. His eyes drop to her breasts for the briefest moment, then come back to her face. It’s like he’s saying, “Really?”

“And you thought that this was a great place to fuck,” Rio says after a beat. There’s nothing harsh about the way that he says it. It doesn’t even sound pointed. But everyone registers what Rio’s just said and they tense.

Beth wants to expel the tension, so she laughs. Giggles really, then gestures around. “Isn’t it?”

Rio leans back fully in his chair and studies her. A knock on the door has one of his guys getting up to let someone in with a tray of drinks. The woman sets them down carefully.

“Thank you,” Rio says. Apparently he hasn’t lost all his manners.

But once the door’s shut and it’s just them again, his attention snaps back to Beth.

“It would be,” he says, “if I hadn’t already told Charlie that he wasn’t fucking any more girls up here.”

Charlie tenses. “Rio, I-“

“‘M not talking to you,” Rio cuts him off without breaking eye contact with Beth. “I’m talking to Elizabeth.”

Beth swallows and carefully pushes Charlie’s hand off her leg. Thankfully, he takes the hint and snatches it back. “I’m listening,” she says.

Rio smiles, but there’s no amusement anywhere else on his face. “Are you, Elizabeth? I’m not sure.”

She lifts her chin and stands. “If that’s all, I think I’d like to head out.”

“The first smart thing you’ve done tonight.”

Beth glares at him. Who the fuck does he even think that he is? He’s acting like a possessive boyfriend. Over an employee that he kissed _one_ time.

He stands too. “I’ll take you.”

Some of the others start to get up too, but Rio shakes his head. “Nah, you stay. Have a good time. It’s on my tab.” He makes eye contact with Eddie and nods. Beth sees Eddie’s gaze flick to Charlie for a second, but his demeanour doesn’t change.

Beth just wants out of the room, so she doesn’t say anything when Rio follows her down the hall.

“Nah, this way,” he says when she goes towards the stairs that lead down to the club. “Won’t have to push through the crowd.”

She follows him through a door that leads to another set of stairs, this one much more utilitarian. They pass an entrance to the area behind the bar and a few others that Beth can’t figure out until he pushes one open and they step out into the night.

“C’mon,” he says, “I’ll take you home.”

Rio touches her back lightly as he guides her to his car.

“I don’t need a ride,” she tries to say.

He just chuckles. They reach his car, a black Caddy with heavily tinted windows. “Get in the car, Elizabeth,” he says.

Beth doesn’t feel like arguing and she’s pretty confident that he’s not going to murder her or anything, so she gets into his car.

“Where you live?” he asks once he’s pulled out of his parking spot.

“I told you, I can get home by myself.” Beth tugs down the hem of her skirt, even though it doesn’t do much.

He just stays silent, waiting her out. And it works. She gives him her address.

Rio nods, doesn’t comment on it, just starts driving in that direction.

They pull to a stop at a red light and Beth’s skin prickles at the silence in the car.

Rio turns his head so he’s looking at her and he runs his eyes up from her thighs.

“You looking to get fucked tonight, sweetheart?”

Beth stiffens. “None of your business,” Beth tells him.

He licks his lips, then meets her eyes. “You came in looking for cock, huh? You want something inside you, that it?”

She swallows.

“One and done,” he goes on. “I mean, it’s what you woulda got from Charlie. He don’t do repeats.”

Beth snorts. “And you do?” She shakes her head. “You’re forgetting who encounters the girls you hook up with, coming back to the bar looking for you.”

Rio lets his lids slide half closed as he leans his head back. “I’m not against repeats on principle. Those girls...they’re just not worth the time.”

“And what does a girl have to do to be deemed worth the time?” Beth snaps.

He grins as he accelerates through the intersection. “Why you wanna know?”

“Call it professional curiosity,” Beth says.

He chuckles, then sobers as he considers the question. “Gotta be more than sex, no matter how good. Want to be able to talk to her between rounds.”

Beth rolls her eyes, which he catches.

“I’m serious. Doesn’t matter if she gives head like nothing I’ve ever experienced before, she can’t keep up with the rest of me, what’s the point in keeping her around?” Rio asks.

The way he talks about this supposed woman makes Beth’s anger bubble up. “Did you consider that I don’t have a problem with Charlie just wanting to fuck once? That maybe it’s all I want too?”

“Is it?” Rio asks.

“Yes! Newsflash, Rio, women get horny too.”

He laughs and Beth wants to hit him in the arm, tell him to fuck off.

“Something in particular get you that way, Elizabeth?”

Beth feels her name from Rio’s mouth like he’s licking across her skin and she hates how every single part of her body seems to snap to attention when he says it.

“No,” she says, not looking at him.

He hums. “Nothing? No encounters with men that got you going and had you going home to rub one out? I’m surprised, beautiful woman like you.”

“Nope.”

“Shame,” Rio says softly. “Someone should be appreciating you. Showing you how good it can be, how good you can feel.”

She shifts on the seat, hoping that he doesn’t see her press her legs together, but resigned to the fact that he probably does.

“When’s the last time?”

“Last time what?” Beth says.

“Someone fucked you.” Rio’s still got his eyes on the road, like this is a normal conversation.

“None of your business,” she replies.

He smiles. “Way too long then. It’s a goddamn shame.”

“I was trying to do something about that,” she reminds him, “when you involved yourself in my business.”

“He wouldn’t have given you what you needed - Charlie. He’s selfish,” Rio says as he pulls onto Beth’s street. “Wouldn’t have satisfied you.”

Beth rolls her eyes. “I know how to make myself come,” she mutters.

“Yeah, but you shouldn’t have to,” Rio counters. “The right guy’ll make it so good for you that you can’t even let go of whatever you can grab onto. You’ll lose all sense of what’s up and what’s down as he fucks you.”

She swallows at the image, the sensation, that he’s painting for her, but doesn’t respond and they lapse into silence for the last block.

He parks in front of her building.

“This it?” he asks.

Beth nods. She should open the door and get out of his car. Say thanks for the lift, good night. But she’s glued to her seat, waiting to see if he’ll go on telling her how she deserves to be fucked. Wanting to know if he’ll offer.

Rio hums, then turns his head to look at her. “Go home, Elizabeth,” he says. “Get some rest.”

It stings a little, the rejection in his words. Not that she’d offered anything for him to reject.

She undoes her seatbelt. “Thanks for the lift I told you not to give me.”

He laughs when she slams the car door, but he doesn’t drive away until after Beth’s in the building. It sends a little pang through her, reminds her of her closing shifts at the bar - the comfort in the thought that someone’s looking out for her. In theory, the Bureau is. Her team is. But they don’t have every second of every day to devote just to her on this case. Hell, they don’t even have visuals on her most of the time, it had been deemed too risky.

Beth reaches her floor without incident, despite how uncomfortable her shoes are getting. Her luck doesn’t hold out though and she’s halfway down the hall to her apartment when Steven’s door opens.

“Fun night?” he asks Beth, leering at her.

She adopts a slightly less tense demeanour. She doesn’t exactly want to just throw a punch at him. Okay, she does, but she doesn’t know how he’ll react and what that means in terms of her cover.

She just giggles and shrugs, staying a few feet away from him. “You know,” she says, “I think it was.”

Steven looks her up and down. “Want to keep the fun going?”

Beth stands a little straighter. “No, thank you. I’d like to go home and be alone.”

He nods, then stands there like he’s waiting for her to do just that. He’s not quite blocking the hall, but he’s got a long reach and there’s no way to pass him without getting in range of his hands.

“Good night,” she says to him, hoping it’ll make him retreat, but it doesn’t.

And Beth? Beth is fucking tired. She wants to get all of her makeup off and to burn these shoes and this fucking dress and forget that anything ever happened. So she decides _fuck it_ and just walks down the hall. Her assessment, it turns out, was right. Steven grabs her by the arm and yanks her towards him, but Beth’s already adjusted her grip on her clutch so that she can ram it into his throat.

Steven lets go of her and starts to cough, hands on his throat.

“Don’t fucking touch me,” Beth warns him.

She unlocks her own apartment and goes inside, shutting the door and flipping all of the locks and the chain. She doesn’t start shaking until she’s brushing her hair out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to medievalraven and neveroffanon who beta'd this and have been helping me work on this fic for months at this point! Title is a line from Point Break.
> 
> As previously mentioned, it's all written and I'll be posting new chapters once a week. Some chapters will have more specific warnings in the notes, so please keep an eye on them. I’ll be adding to the tags as well. If there's ever anything that you feel I should also be warning or tagging for, please let me know.


	6. Cover

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Back at work, Beth expresses some feelings to Rio.

Beth moans, lifting her hips to meet the questing mouth between her legs.

“Yes,” she gasps, hands twisting in her pillowcase. “Oh fuck, right there.”

She feels him chuckle against her before he flattens his tongue and hooks his fingers inside of her only to pull away before she comes.

She tries to open her eyes, but it’s still dark. She can feel the soft fabric of a scarf wrapped around her eyes.

There’s movement, then a pair of hands turning her over onto her stomach, roaming over her ass, her back.

“You want it?” a familiar raspy voice asks.

Beth nods.

“What do you want?”

“You,” she moans.

Beth jerks awake in bed right as her dream self starts to get railed, feeling way too fucking empty. She’s all tangled in her sheets, hips rubbing her cunt against her bedding. It’s been over 24 hours at this point since Rio drove her home, teasing her all the way.

“Fuck,” she hisses into her pillow. “Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck,” she chants as she leans over the side of her bed to pull out the bottom drawer of her nightstand.

She needs something inside of her other than just her fingers. She grabs the toy she’s looking for, along with lube and a condom for easier clean up. She opens the package and rolls it down the length of blue silicone. 

At first she just rubs herself with it, pushing it against her clit. It feels good, but she could have done this with her hand.

Spreading lube on the toy and then fingering herself quickly, Beth lines it up with her cunt. She lifts her head to watch as she pushes it in.

It’s not much more of a stretch than a couple of fingers, but it’s longer and it’s the depth that Beth is craving. Her legs are trembling already as she sinks it deeper and deeper until it’s all the way in.

Her head drops back onto the mattress and she stares up at the ceiling as she takes the base of the toy in her hands and pulls it out a little. She lifts her hips as she shoves it back in, moaning.

“When’s the last time you got fucked?”

She calls back to mind how Rio had sounded as he asked her that. Beth rubs her clit with one hand as she thrusts the toy shallowly, not wanting to pull it out more than an inch or so. Even that seems like too much.

With a gasp, she rolls onto her stomach and spreads her legs so that her hands on the base of the dildo are pressed against the bed and she starts to circle hips just ever so slightly so that the angle changes inside of her.

“Oh fuck,” she moans.

“Yeah, take it,” her imagined partner demands. She pretends that he doesn’t look and sound like Rio as she rides the toy. “That’s a good girl.”

He’d pinch her nipples, squeeze her ass.

“C’mon, Elizabeth. Come on me, just like that.”

She keeps moaning, nearing her peak, and then pushing it in as deep as it could go and groaning.

After she comes, Beth pants into her pillow, just nudging her hips back and forth a little. It’s enough to make her whine from how sensitive she feels, so she lifts herself up onto her knees and reaches down to pull the toy out.

She misses it as soon as it’s gone and rubs three fingers over her cunt.

It isn’t _fair_.

As she pulls off the condom and disposes of it, she thinks to herself that she hopes Rio’s having just as much trouble when it comes to thoughts of her.

She hopes that no matter what he tries to do, she’s in his thoughts.

The image of him touching himself with her name on his lips makes Beth shiver.

She needs to stop thinking about Rio.

—————————————————

When Rio shows up at the bar that night - _again_ \- Beth’s ready to call off the whole operation and demand she go work a desk somewhere for a few months.

She can’t keep her eyes off his hands, those long and surprisingly delicate looking fingers, the palms that could swallow her up. She shivers and turns to Jessa and gives her a thumbs up to let her know she’d heard the order.

Making the cocktail occupies her hands, even if it doesn’t take a lot of her focus.

The next time that Beth looks up, Rio’s leaning against the bar, watching her.

“So, Elizabeth,” he says in that smooth voice of his, “you had your break yet tonight?”

Beth reddens at the memory of the last break she’d taken that had involved him. “No,” she says. “I just started.”

“Shame,” he tells her. “Coulda kept you company.”

With that, he walks off and rejoins the men that he’d come in with.

From there, Beth’s night goes downhill.

There’s a group of barely legal blondes who clearly think that coming here is slumming it and who are trying, and succeeding, at getting a whole lot of attention. They’re treating it like it’s a game.

Jessa glares at them. “What the fuck are they doing?” she mutters.

Thankfully, they leave after a round of drinks. It’s probably enough of a story for them to tell their friends on Monday, but at least one of them was wearing body glitter because the booth they were sitting in has the stuff all over it.

Jake is back, trying to chat to Beth every second she’s in his vicinity and it’s wearing on her - trying to be polite to him.

Someone pukes.

It comes to a head when Beth finally takes her break, stepping out into the cool night air. She pushes the brick that they keep there to prop the door open into place, shutting her eyes and taking a deep breath once she can feel the cool night air. Even though it’s not for long, she has a few minutes to herself. A moment to relax.

The calm is marred by someone chuckling.

Her eyes snap in the direction of the laugh and she tenses when she sees it’s Jake. He drops his cigarette to the pavement and stamps it out.

“Was hoping you’d follow me out,” he says, moving towards Beth.

“Excuse me?”

“Was hoping you’d follow me out,” Jake repeats. “Been dying to get my hands on your tits since your first day here.”

“I think you’re mistaken,” Beth tells him, tone cold. “I’m not interested.”

Jake laughs. “If you’re not interested, why you act so sweet all the time, huh?”

“It’s my job,” Beth snaps, looking around for her best way out.

“Nah,” Jake insists, “Jessa’s polite and does her job. You do more than that. It’s fine if you want to play coy.”

Beth’s getting ready to turn and push back into the bar when the door behind her opens up. Jake looks up and his eyes widen.

“There a problem?”

It’s Rio’s voice. Beth relaxes even before she fully recognizes that it’s him.

“No, Rio,” Jake says, stepping back from Beth as she turns to look at Rio.

Rio’s attention isn’t on him though, it’s on Beth. “Elizabeth,” he says. He’s asking her.

She shakes her head.

“Get the fuck out of here,” Rio says, this time to Jake, who takes the warning for what it is and bolts.

Rio comes to stand in front of her and touches her jaw. “You good?”

“I’m fine, Rio.”

He nods. “You gotta be firm,” he instructs her. “Else guys like that think you’re just playing hard to get. You should have told one of my boys about him.”

Beth laughs. “I’m fine, Rio, and he’s harmless.”

Rio cocks his head to the side. “Oh yeah?”

“Yeah. He’s just flirting and thought I was flirting back,” Beth tells him.

“Went to high school with him,” Rio says, making Beth’s eyes widen. She thinks that this might be the first piece of personal information that he’s ever given her. “He ain’t harmless.”

Her head jerkss back. “What?”

“He had a reputation for not listening to the word no,” Rio says.

Beth just looks at him. What is it with goddamn men just thinking that everything in their sight belongs to them?

Rio looks at Beth, and lifts his hand so that his fingertips brush against the skin under her chin. “Shouldn’t be here,” he says.

“Where should you be?” Beth asks.

He shakes his head. “You. You shouldn’t be here. Too pretty and too sweet.”

“I’m tough,” Beth says, crossing her arms over her chest.

Rio smiles. “I know. But men like that guy, men like your ex, they don’t see that. They see you and you look like prey to them. They don’t know how tough you can be, do they?”

Beth shakes her head.

“Look,” he says, letting go of her chin, “I’ll move you uptown. You can start at -“

“No.”

His head jerks a little. “Excuse me?”

“No, you aren’t going to move me uptown,” she says. “I’d have to drive or take transit to get there. It’d be twice the commute, at least.”

“Tips are better,” he tells her. “You’d just be waitressing. You could move out of that shitty apartment.”

“No,” Beth repeats. “I’m not just gonna go wherever you want to put me, Rio.”

“You’d be able to see more of Charlie,” he says and something in his tone makes Beth pull back.

“Nothing happened.”

His eyes come to hers.

“And if it had, it would have been hooking up,” Beth says. “Like you do all the time. So you can lose the petulant child tone.”

“Petulant child?” Rio laughs, stepping closer to her. “I’m the petulant child?”

“Yes!” Beth snaps.

“You came into my club,” he says, hisses almost, “dancing around in that dress looking for someone to fuck you. You were gonna let him fuck you in my club and I’m the petulant child?”

“I didn’t know it was your club!” Beth snaps back. “If I had, I wouldn’t have gone.”

He chuckles. “You didn’t know? I’m supposed to believe that? You weren’t there to be a fucking cock tease, grinding yourself against other guys? It make you feel better?”

“Not everything is about you,” Beth says. “Not everything is yours. What I do is no business of yours or any other guy.” She can feel herself getting worked up, her interaction with Steven two nights before hitting her again. “If I dress up, that’s because I want to and that doesn’t mean that you can touch or that I have any kind of obligation to you -“

“Elizabeth,” his voice cuts through her, “what happened?”

Beth blinks, confused.

He reaches up, fingers hovering over her cheek and Beth realizes that there’s a tear sliding down her cheek.

“What happened?” he repeats, gentle as can be.

She crosses her arms and turns her face away from him.

Rio drops his hand with a sigh.

“Did somebody hurt you?”

“In my life or recently?” Beth mutters under her breath, but he still hears her.

“Elizabeth,” stern again, “tell me what happened.”

“Why do you even care?” she demands. “I’m not your business.”

He grits his teeth together and looks away.

“And if it’s just because you want to get in my pants, you’re just as bad as him.”

“No,” he says firmly. “It’s not -“

“Then what is it?” Beth asks again, glaring at him.

“Don’t know a lot of women dance around to the Spice Girls,” he says in a half-teasing tone, in a way that suggests that this is an answer to her question of why he cares.

Beth blinks. “How did you - You saw me?”

He nods. “Didn’t want to interrupt you. Seemed like you were having fun.”

The rest of that shift returns to her in full force.

“Funny,” she says, “because I remember you having a lot of fun that night too. In the store room. Almost like you knew I’d show up eventually. But the second that I so much as kiss another guy, somewhere I wasn’t expecting you to be, it’s like I’ve personally offended you.”

“Elizabeth,” he starts, “tell me who hurt you.”

She whips her head back to face him. “No. You aren’t entitled to that either. Go away.” She turns and heads back inside, detouring to the bathroom to fix her make-up.

Jessa picks up on her mood as soon as Beth’s back behind the bar, but they get through the shift without any further problems.

Beth thinks she’s escaped from any questions until they’re locking up.

“What happened?” Jessa asks.

“What do you mean?”

Jessa sighs. “That bruise on your arm.”

She eyes the other woman. “Did Rio tell you to ask me?”

“No,” Jessa says, frowning. “Why? Is he giving you trouble?”

Beth bites her lip. She just wants to talk to someone, anyone, about what’s happened with Rio. Or at least part of it.

“I went out the other night.”

Jessa nods. “I know, you were talking about your plans when we worked together last.”

“Turns out that the club I went to is another one of Rio’s,” she goes on. She catches the slight widening of Jessa’s eyes, but the other woman doesn’t say anything. “I was kissing this guy in a VIP room, Rio came in, acted like I’d offended him somehow. Drove me home.”

Jessa stops walking and stares at Beth. “Shit,” she mutters, “that’s why he’s been coming in more.”

“Huh?”

Jessa’s not looking at her, but instead has this kind of far off look as though she’s slotting pieces into place.

“What do you mean?” Beth asks.

“Before you started working here, we saw Rio maybe twice a month. If that. Now he’s here multiple times a week.” Jessa taps her foot and bites her lip. “He say anything to you? Make any advances?”

“I mean, we kissed, but -“

Jessa curses. “Fuck, Beth, you kissed the guy and you’re wondering why he was offended to find you making out with someone else?”

“It’s complicated,” Beth protests. “My ex came into the bar. I ducked out from behind the bar and ran into him in the hall. He stopped me, my ex was going to the bathroom, Rio kissed me so that Dean wouldn’t notice me.”

Jessa crosses her arms over her chest. “And that’s it? No other talking, flirty moments?”

Beth wants to say no, there haven’t been, but that would be a lie and the point of having this conversation with Jessa is so that she can be at least kind of honest for a few minutes.

“Maybe a couple,” she admits.

“Beth,” Jesse says, “remember back when you first asked me about Rio and I told you to stay away from him?”

“Yes,” Beth nods, “and I have!”

“Well it doesn’t matter what you do at this point because it’s a little late for staying away. He’s interested now.”

“So what,” Beth asks, “he’s interested which means I’m his now?”

Jessa shakes her head. “No, but it means be careful. Even if you didn’t know that club was his, he probably sees it as you goading him into something.”

“I’m not! And I told him that I didn’t know it was his.” Beth kicks a loose piece of gravel.

“Doesn’t matter,” Jessa says. “You want some, you’re gonna have to be discreet.”

“I was being discreet,” Beth says through gritted teeth.

“More discreet, then,” Jessa tells her. “Did he give you that bruise?”

“No,” Beth replies. ”This guy in my building.”

Jessa’s attention immediately sharpens. “Are you okay?”

Beth nods. “I’m fine. I don’t think he expected me to hit back quite so hard as I did.”

The other woman doesn’t look so sure.

“Seriously,” Beth says, “he backed off the second it was clear I wasn’t just going to let him do whatever. I can take care of myself.”

“You shouldn’t have to deal with him though,” Jessa replies. “If he gives you more trouble, well, you know who to ask for help.”

Beth chuckles. “Wouldn’t that get me in even deeper with him?”

“For that?” Jessa shakes her head. “No, he’d do that for free. Anyways, we should head home. I don’t know about you, but I’m fucking tired.”

“Don’t need to tell me twice,” Beth agrees, about to turn towards her car when Jessa surprises her with a hug.

“Take care of yourself, Beth,” Jessa says. “I actually like you.”

Beth returns the hug. She’s missed this - casual affection. Normally she’d be getting hugs from Annie and Ruby. Stan, Ben, Sara. It’s lonely, working undercover.

Jessa seems to understand that Beth needs the hug, so she tightens it for a brief moment, then lets her go.

“Get some rest,” she tells Beth before going to her own car.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to medievalraven and neveroffanon who beta'd this and have been helping me work on this fic for months at this point! Title is a line from Point Break.
> 
> As previously mentioned, it's all written and I'll be posting new chapters once a week. Some chapters will have more specific warnings in the notes, so please keep an eye on them. I’ll be adding to the tags as well. If there's ever anything that you feel I should also be warning or tagging for, please let me know. Some advance warning: next chapter will have some fairly graphic violence.


	7. Weasel

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> All of Beth's plans go to hell.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Warnings** : attempted assault, graphic violence. If you want a full explanation of the warnings, please jump to the end notes.

The bruise doesn’t stick around long, and Beth’s relieved when she notices that she can’t even see it anymore.

Rio disappears for a few days too, and Beth has a chance to breathe. To remember what she’s actually supposed to be doing. She passes on some names to Phoebe at another brunch. She tries not to think about how relieved she’d been when Phoebe hadn’t asked any questions about Rio.

Life almost seems to be settling down, which is why it’s almost a complete surprise when everything goes to shit.

It’s late on Thursday night, just her and Court behind the bar.

“A Corona,” a customer says and Beth recognizes the voice. It’s familiar, has her glancing over as Court fills the order. She almost doesn’t recognize him - she’d only met him once and he wasn’t exactly memorable.

But it’s him - Boomer, Annie’s manager at Fine and Frugal. The one that creeps on her all the time. The one who has an idea about what Annie's sister does for a living.

Heart racing, she goes back to what she was doing, trying not to draw attention to herself. It seems to work, he doesn’t try to talk to her, just drinks his beer and leaves without tipping.

“Shit,” Court mutters a few minutes before they close. “Shit shit shit.”

“What?” Beth asks.

“My sister,” Court says. “She got in a car accident.”

“Go,” Beth says.

Court starts to shake her head, but Beth ignores her protests.

“We’ve already done most of the cleaning,” Beth points out. “I’ll lock the door at close, put up chairs. The cash can go in the safe and someone can count it in the morning.”

“Fuck,” Court curses, biting her lip. “I don’t want to leave you alone.”

Beth nudges her. “I’m fine. Go be with your sister.”

Court nods, leaving without even grabbing her sweater from where it’s tucked under the bar.

The next few minutes are quiet, no last minute customers. She’s just coming out from behind the bar to lock up when the door opens again.

“Forget something?” she calls out, bending down to pick up a coaster.

“No, I didn’t.”

The fact that it’s a man’s voice immediately has Beth on high alert even before she realizes who it is.

“We’re about to close,” she tells Boomer. “Not serving anymore.”

“Not even for a friend of your sister?” he asks, stepping towards her.

Beth swallows, doing her best to hide how much this is unnerving her. “Sorry,” she says, “but I can’t.”

“Beth, right?” Boomer keeps approaching her. “Thought I recognized you,” he says. “Annie kept saying you were out of town. But here you are. You lying to your sister, Beth?”

Beth sets her jaw. “None of your fucking business, Boomer. Now get out.”

He shakes his head. “Nah, I don’t think I will. See, I remembered something about you when I was waiting for you to close up.”

Beth goes cold.

“I was wracking my brain, trying to remember what Annie said her sister did for a living.” Boomer taps the bar top. “It wasn’t this.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Beth tells him. He knows. He knows she’s a fed. He knows her name and Annie’s name and Ben’s. He knows everything that Rio needs to make her do what he wants.

Boomer laughs. “I can see it dawning on you, you know. Your boss know what your old job was?”

“Get out,” Beth repeats.

“I don’t think you want that, Mrs. Boland,” Boomer says. “In fact, I think you very much want me to stay. How about that? I’ll keep my mouth shut and in return…” he trails off and gives Beth a long look before meeting her eye and smiling.

“You’re delusional,” Beth says.

His hand snakes out and grabs her arm. The strength of his grip surprises her and it’s even more of a shock when he’s able to drag her towards him. Her mind seems to drain of all the self-defence training that she’s had and she just tries to pull away. They struggle briefly, stumbling backwards until Beth’s back hits something.

“That’s perfectly fair, huh?” Boomer sneers. “You let me fuck you and I won’t tell your boss.”

Beth is caught between him and the bar. She can feel him getting hard against her hip and all she wants to do is hurt him. She gets a leg free and kicks him in the shin. His grip loosens enough for her to throw her arm out and grasp for something, anything. Finally, her fingers touch something and she curls them around the neck of the bottle, swinging it right at Boomer’s head.

It hits, but it’s a bad angle and all it does it make him howl in rage as he staggers back.

“I was gonna make sure that you enjoyed it,” he says, knocking the bottle from her hand with a well timed hit to her elbow, “but I guess that’s not in the cards anymore.”

Beth snarls, ready to go for his eyes when he gets close.

The bang seems to come out of nowhere.

One second, Boomer’s advancing on her and the next, he’s crumbling to the ground, a good portion of his head missing as Beth screams, scrambling away from the body.

She turns her head towards the direction of the gunshot and sees Rio lowering a gun, his fury written on his face. Beth can’t breathe.

He turns towards her and his face softens instantly. She watches him slip the gun into his jacket as he walks over to her.

“Hey,” his voice is soft, “Elizabeth, look at me.”

She is looking at him, what’s he talking about.

“Are you hurt?”

Beth shakes her head, but it seems like he doesn’t quite believe her because he does a visual inspection of her - front and back.

“It’s okay,” he says.

No, it’s not. There’s a dead man on the floor, one who had known who she really is and she has no idea what Rio heard.

“I’ll take care of it,” Rio says, cupping her chin and directing her face upwards.

Beth’s shaking. “He kept saying -“ she doesn’t have to pretend to hiccup a sob and she doesn’t even notice that she’s crying until Rio’s fingers brush her cheeks.

“I’m gonna take care of it,” he repeats, more firmly this time. “Demon’s gonna take you home.”

Beth tightens her hold on Rio without thinking about it and he softens.

He sighs. “You live alone?”

Beth nods once.

“Okay,” he says. “Demon’s gonna take you to my place and he’s gonna stay with you until I get there. He’ll show you where everything is. You can take a shower, have something to eat. I won’t be long.”

“You promise?” Beth asks.

“I promise,” he replies, reaching up to tuck her hair behind her ear. When he straightens up, his expression is a lot less soft. “Demon,” he calls out. Beth’s met Demon a couple of times, the quiet giant kind of guy. “You’re taking her to my place,” he explains, then the rest of it is too low for her to hear.

When Beth starts to walk towards her car, Demon gently herds her towards a different one. It’s sleek and black, nearly silent when Demon turns the ignition on and starts driving Beth to -

“Where’s he live?” Beth asks, suddenly feeling the need to know where she’s going.

“By the water,” he answers gruffly. “It’ll take us at least twenty minutes to get there.” He pauses. “You want music?”

Beth nods and Demon turns on something soft and melodic that she doesn’t recognize. Her forehead rests against the cold window as she watches everything go by. Eventually the densely packed buildings disappear, replaced by residential streets, which turn into long roads with driveways only so often.

Finally, he turns off the road onto a driveway protected by a gate. Demon punches in a code and waits as it opens. There must be automatic sensors, because the outside of the house lights up.

It’s a beautiful house, a mix of wood and glass that Beth just immediately thinks suits Rio.

The garage needs another code to open and Beth’s surprised to see that it’s empty aside from a single motorcycle despite the size.

Demon sees her looking around. “He’s not really a car guy,” he says, parking. “C’mon.”

Beth gets out of the car and follows him to a door that she assumes leads to the house. It needs a key and a code.

“Good security,” she notes.

Demon just looks at her before starting to climb a flight of stairs.

Beth follows, looking around everywhere when they come out into a kitchen.

“What do you want first?” he asks. “Food or shower?”

“Shower,” Beth says immediately.

“Alright, shoes off,” he instructs, taking off his own as well.

She does as she’s told.

Demon nods. “Upstairs.” He leads her into a hall and living space, up another flight of stairs, and down a hall past a whole bunch of closed doors to what seems to be a spare bedroom. He points to a door on the other side of the room. “Shower. There should be shampoo and towels in there, but holler if there isn’t.”

“Thanks.”

Beth heads into the bathroom, which rivals anything Beth has ever seen before. She strips, goes to the bathroom, then turns the water hot and jumps in.

At one point, she thinks that she’s going to cry when she realizes that some blood has soaked through the front of her shirt, getting onto her skin and drying, but she shuts her eyes and breathes.

“You’re okay,” she says out loud. “You’re okay.”

Beth comes out of the shower, feeling slightly better. There’s a tap on the door that has her grabbing a towel and wrapping it around herself to open it a fraction.

It’s Demon, very pointedly not looking at Beth. “Put some clothes that might fit you on the bed. There’s a bag for your clothes on the bed, bring it down with you,” he says, then turns to leave.

Beth glances out the crack in the door as Demon walks away and sees a stack of clothes. She dries off before leaving the bathroom, although she goes back to grab her underwear when she realizes that the clothes are Rio’s. It’s a bunch of sweatpants and t-shirts, with a couple of cardigans as well. She doesn’t think she’s ever seen Rio wear anything like it, but they’re his.

She gets dressed and dries her hair, finds some moisturizer. She’s feeling mostly like herself again by the time she’s done, shoving her dirty clothes in the plastic bag that Demon left for her.

She looks at herself in the mirror. “It’s gonna be okay,” she says.

Beth walks out to the hall. She’s starting to feel hungry, like she could eat an entire meal and still have room for dessert kind of hungry.

She’s almost at the top of the stairs when she hears voices downstairs. She freezes.

“Gave her some of your stuff,” Demon says. “Once I’ve got the bloody clothes, I’m ready to go. I’ll take it with me.”

Beth relaxes slightly. It must be Rio. He can’t have been more than half an hour behind them in getting to his house.

“Thanks.” Rio’s voice is clear even with the low pitch. She can’t hear what he says next, but he finishes with, “make sure of it, personally.”

Then, a little louder, he says, “You gonna join us?”

Beth nearly jumps out of her skin. How had he known she was listening? She hadn’t made a sound walking to the stairs and she doesn’t think he can see her. She sticks her hands in the pockets of the hoodie that Demon had taken out for her and walks down the stairs.

Rio and Demon are in the kitchen. Demon’s got his jacket on. He must be leaving.

Rather than asking Rio how he’d known she was there, her attention goes to Demon first. “Thanks.” She holds out the bag to him.

He just nods and takes it from her. “See you later.”

Then it’s just her and Rio standing in his house. His clothes are big on her in most places, but tight in others, like her hips and chest. She bites her lip.

“You think you can eat?”

Beth’s not expecting the question, but she nods.

“I picked up pizza on my way home,” he says. “Tossed it in the oven to keep it warm. C’mon.”

She joins him in the kitchen, where he directs her to take a seat at the island then asks her a series of questions. Does she want something to drink? Wine, beer, water? Sparkling or still? Is she one of those weirdos that eats pizza with a knife and fork?

It makes Beth giggle and some of the weight lifts from her shoulders. Would he be teasing her like this if he had heard what Boomer had been saying?

Conversation is light through dinner. He doesn’t ask her anything about Boomer. Doesn’t bring up work or why she’s at his house. Instead, he asks if she’s watching any TV shows, what books she likes.

It occurs to her, as she finishes up her last slice, that it’s first date kind of questions.

“You should get some sleep,” Rio says after he takes the dishes away and puts them in the dishwasher. “I’m gonna do some work in the office.”

Beth shakes her head. “I don’t want to be alone right now.”

Rio sighs.

“Is there a couch?” she asks him, looking up at him through her eyelashes.

He bites his lower lip, nods. “It’s not as comfortable as a bed, Elizabeth.”

“Being alone isn’t as comfortable as being around someone,” she replies. “Being around you.”

“Yeah?” He strokes his hand through her hair. “C’mon then.”

His office has another keypad and whether he does it instinctively or on purpose, Rio blocks her sight of him entering his code. The door clicks and he opens it.

Despite Rio’s warning, the couch is comfortable. He sets her up with pillows and a blanket.

“Wake me up when you’re done,” she tells him, covering herself up.

“Alright,” he says, patting her hip before going to the desk and his laptop.

She doesn’t actually think that she’ll get to sleep, but there’s something soothing about the low light and rhythmic tapping of Rio’s typing and before long, she drifts to sleep.

“Hey,” he says when he shakes her awake a while later. Beth feels groggy, but is able to stand and follows him to the doorway of the room she’d showered in earlier. “Goodnight,” he tells her, then starts to walk away.

Beth’s hand snakes out and grabs his arm. “Please don’t,” she whispers.

“You need to sleep,” he says, stroking her hair.

“I’ll stay with you,” Beth tells him. “You’ve probably got a gigantic bed, right?”

“Elizabeth,” he says her name like a sigh. “That’s not a good idea.”

Beth doesn’t say anything to that, just keeps looking up at him until he gives in.

“Fine.”

He leads her down the hall to his bedroom. She can see right away that she was right about the size of his bed. It looks bigger than her bedroom in the apartment she’s been living in these past few months.

He’s got a spare toothbrush and, to her surprise, some good cleanser.

“What?” he teases. “I can’t want nice skin?”

Beth smiles. Dean had never bothered with things like that. Soap was soap, he’d say.

She climbs into his big bed when he shuts the bathroom door for his own nightly routine. She can’t tell which side he normally sleeps on, so she just settles in the middle.

She’s half asleep when he comes out of the bathroom and gets into bed with her. She’s not expecting it when he pulls her towards him and wraps his arms around her.

“You good?” he asks.

“I will be.”

He strokes her back. “I’ll take care of you,” he says. “Go to sleep.”

But now that he’s back, she’s awake again and it’s dark and all she feels is a bone deep exhaustion that she’s been carrying around for ages.

At her first sob, he pulls her in closer.

“You’re okay,” he says. “You’re safe.” As he repeats those words to her over and over, he rubs her back and tightens his arms, kisses the top of her head. “Elizabeth,” he sighs, smoothing her hair down.

“If you hadn’t been there,” she starts to say, but he cuts her off.

“Then you would have beat the shit out of that guy all by yourself,” he says, confident. “He wouldn’t have hurt you.”

“He would have,” Beth replies. “Or if it wasn’t him, it would have been my fucking neighbour, or someone else.”

He keeps stroking her back. “Your neighbour try something with you?”

She nods. “The night you took me home. I hit him.”

His lips come to her forehead. “You’re so strong, Elizabeth,” he tells her.

“I’m tired of it,” she admits. “I’m just so tired of it.”

“I’m here,” he says. “I’m not gonna let anything happen to you. I’m not gonna do anything to hurt you.”

Beth wipes at her eyes. “How can I know that? Trust that?”

He stiffens under her, then relaxes slowly, like he’s making himself release the tension, but his hands stop moving.

“You want me to sleep in the other room?” he suggests.

She shakes her head, holding onto him. How can she explain to him that she means it in the hypothetical?

Rio’s quiet for a few minutes. “You gotta trust yourself. You trust you, listen to your gut, it’ll take care of you. Your gut say anything about me?”

“It says you’re dangerous,” she says. “It says that you shot a man tonight. You didn’t even know him or what was going on. You just killed him.”

“He was hurting you.”

“It’s that simple?” Beth hiccups. “Just a split second decision and he’s gone?”

“I trusted my gut.” His hands start moving over her back again.

“And that’s enough for you?”

Rio sighs. “I think you can probably guess that it wasn’t my first time pulling a trigger,” he says carefully.

Beth stiffens, but he just keeps on like he hasn’t noticed, even though she knows that he must have.

“What I do, what I’ve done to make it where I am,” he pauses, “I’ve had to make choices and then live with them. I’m used to it. You aren’t, but that’s okay. You don’t gotta be. Just trust me, okay.”

She takes a shaky breath. “I don’t even - I barely know who you are, Rio. All I’ve got are a bunch of half truths and some educated guesses. I know everyone’s fucking terrified of you. I know that everyone seems to be in your debt somehow. Is that what this is? Me getting into debt with you?”

“No.” He says it harshly. “No,” he repeats.

“You say to trust you but I don’t know who I’m trusting,” she tells him. “I don’t even know what your name is.”

“It’s Rio.”

Beth laughs. “That’s all you got? One name? No family, no connections, no anything?”

“You want to know what my parents named me?” he asks. “That’ll help you trust me?”

“I don’t know,” Beth says. “I just…I don’t know.”

“Cristóbal Aguilar Reyes.”

Beth’s heart begins to beat faster. It’s not the same name as the one on his FBI file.

“Now you know why I go by Rio,” he says, a hint of amusement seeping into his voice. “Maybe one day I’ll tell you how I got that name too.”

She makes herself relax a little into him.

“Tell me something about you.”

“What?” Beth asks.

“Something,” he replies. His hand has settled on her lower back, no longer stroking up and down her spine. Instead, it’s flattened against her, warm through his shirt.

She thinks about it for a minute, wondering what to tell him. A truth? A lie? Something in between?

“When I was thirteen, my dad called the house. He’d left a year earlier,” she tells him, “and he said he wanted to come back. He’d made a mistake. I hung up on him. I deleted messages that he left on the answering machine. He gave up after two weeks. My mom never knew he tried to come back. Neither does my sister.”

“He wasn’t a good person,” Rio says.

Beth shrugs. “He was indifferent for the most part. I knew if he came back, it would only be so long before the whole thing happened all over again because it had before, when my sister was a baby. It was just a few weeks, but I remember him being gone and my mom crying. It had been a year. We were getting used to him being gone. We’d started being okay again. If he had come back, I don’t know if my mom could have taken him leaving one more time.”

“You ever tell anyone that?”

“Only one other person,” she admits.

“Your ex?” Rio guesses.

She shakes her head. “No. My best friend. I told her a year after it happened. I don’t think she ever really understood why I did it, but she never told me I was wrong for doing it.”

“You did the right thing. For you and yours, that’s what matters.”

“What if he had come back and been different?” Beth muses. “What if things had turned out better for all of us?”

“You really think it would have been?”

Beth hesitates. “No.”

“He still alive?” Rio asks, his hand sliding under the hem of the shirt she’s wearing to settle on her bare skin.

“Died five years ago,” Beth replies. “I went to his funeral. Found out that I’ve got a half brother who was born three months before he made that phone call to us.”

Rio squeezes her. “You trusted yourself, your judgement. You were right.”

And that’s what it keeps coming back to, isn’t it - her judgement. Her ability to tell right from wrong and to stand by it.

“How do you live with it?” Beth wonders aloud.

“There’s no simple answer to that. You do or you don’t. Everyone’s got their own way.”

“How do _you_ live with it?” Beth repeats.

He doesn’t answer right away, like he’s weighing his answer. “I won’t lose a wink of sleep over him,” he admits. “I’ve learned that there’s times I regret that something had to happen and there’s times when I don’t even need to think twice about it. He’s the second kind.”

“Because you didn’t know him?”

“Because of what he was gonna do,” Rio tells her. “It’s enough to tell me that my instinct was right. I just wish I coulda done it without hurting you.”

Beth lifts her head. “You didn’t hurt me.”

“No?” He shifts beneath her. “If I didn’t hurt you, then why are you crying? Why are you having to think about how you’re gonna live with seeing a man die? I wish I could have protected you from that too. Your mind’s going one way, I’m wondering if I could have hit him in the leg and had Demon bring you here before taking care of the rest.”

Beth seeks out his hand and finds it, curling her fingers around his.

“Why do you even care?” she asks him. It’s a question that he’s avoided answering before, but she hopes that now, in the dark, with some truths out in the open between them, he’ll tell her something that makes sense.

“There’s the general reasons - I don’t like it when men hurt women, that kinda thing. Then the specific.” He doesn’t go on right away. “Ever since I saw you at Teri’s that night, trying to avoid your ex, I’ve wanted to get to know you better.”

“You wanted to have sex with me,” Beth concludes.

“No, well, yes,” he admits. “I do. But it’s more than that. I wanna talk to you, spend time with you. Get to know all of you, not just your body.”

“And if I say that I’m not interested in that?”

“Then I make sure that you’re safe and then I walk away. I’m not a hypocrite, Elizabeth. I’m not gonna try and make you do something you tell me you don’t want.”

“Why me?”

He chuckles. “Because you piss me off.”

Beth pulls away from him. “What?”

“You don’t do as you’re told. You don’t just give me what you think I want. You’re honest with me.”

She swallows. She isn’t. She isn’t honest with him. She’s lying to him now by not telling him who she is even if she’s not lying about what she tells him.

He seems to hear what she’s thinking.

“You’ve got your secrets, everybody does. And I’m hoping that you’ll let me find them out. That’s not what I’m talking about though. You can read everything there is to know about a person and still not know them,” he says.

Beth’s been having the same thought about him for days. Weeks.

“Maybe I don’t know everything about you, but I know enough of you to know that I want the rest.”

She shuts her eyes.

“I feel the same,” she tells him quietly, like if she says it softly enough, it won’t mean as much.

He cranes his neck in order to kiss the top of her head. “We can talk about this later,” he murmurs into her hair. “You need some sleep.”

Beth sets her hand against his side. “You do too.”

Rio chuckles. “I’m trying. But _somebody_ is keeping me up.”

“Oh, sorry.”

“I’m just teasing, Elizabeth,” he assures her. “I’ll stay up as long as you need me to.”

Still, it reminds her that she’s in need of rest. She settles in. “Good night, Rio.”

“Good night, Elizabeth.”

It doesn’t take her as long as she expects to fall asleep.

————————————————

Beth wakes up with a big hand on her breast and an impressive erection pressing into her back.

It takes her a second to remember where she is, who it is that’s behind her, but while she’s processing it, she pushes back against her bedmate. Rio. It’s Rio.

“Elizabeth,” he mumbles, tightening his arms around her.

Beth doesn’t answer, just rubs herself against him.

Rio hisses, then gives in. He grinds against her ass, arm wrapped around her so that his wrist is resting right between her breasts and his hand is spanned out, fingers reaching the base of her throat.

“Fuck,” he curses.

Beth moans and arches her back.

She doesn’t even register him moving until he’s pulled back from her completely, sitting on the edge of the bed, facing away from her, and panting.

“Rio?”

“Gimme a sec,” he says, head in his hands.

She sits up. “Why did you stop?”

“Cuz that’s the last thing you fucking need right now,” he responds, rubbing his temples.

She wraps her arms around her legs and pulls them in close. “Not even if I want it?”

He groans, presses his head harder into his hands and then looks over his shoulder. “When I fuck you,” he says with absolute conviction, “when this thing between us comes to a head, it’s not gonna have a single fucking thing to do with that guy. He’s not gonna taint that.”

Beth shivers and Rio sees it. He grabs another blanket and covers her up.

“I’m not cold,” she insists.

He gives her a stern look.

“Elizabeth,” he sighs.

“Come back,” Beth says, holding out her hand to him.

For a minute, Rio looks like he’s going to refuse, but he takes her hand in his and lies down on his side, looking at her.

“You okay?” he asks. “Why’d you wake up?”

She shrugs, rolling to face him, head resting on her own pillow. “Done sleeping, I guess.”

He smiles at that, but it fades quickly. “You always had to take care of yourself?”

“What do you mean?”

The hand not curled around hers comes out to touch her cheek. “That guy last night. Jake. Your neighbour. You being a boss bitch. You always had to look after you?”

“My parents weren’t really around,” Beth admits. “I have a sister, but she’s younger.”

“So you had to look after her too, huh,” Rio guesses, stroking her skin. It’s gentle and Beth finds her eyes slipping shut. “You don’t have to worry about any of that. I’ll take care of you.”

Beth’s eyes snap open again. “I can take care of myself,” she says. “I don’t need you to -“

“Shhh,” he cuts her off. “I’m not saying you do. I think you have no problem taking care of yourself, Elizabeth. Not saying you can’t. I’m saying you shouldn’t have to do it all by yourself.”

Beth pulls back a little. “And you want to fuck me, so you’re going to help?”

Rio follows, propping himself up so that he’s hovering over her. “I don’t just want to fuck you. If I did, we would have done that already. That night when I kissed you because of your ex? Would have taken you into the back room and fucked you right then and there.”

“Like you did that other girl?” Beth asks.

His lips twitch. “Were you jealous of her?”

Beth just glares at him.

“Yeah,” he says softly, “you were jealous of her. You want it to be you I was inside of? You I was making moan?”

Beth’s lips fall open a little, her eyes darting down to his mouth.

“When I turned my head and I saw you,” Rio goes on, “it was like I’d conjured you up somehow. Because I was thinking about it being you I was fucking. But you would’ve been different. You would have been pushing back at me, telling me what to do, probably digging your nails into my shoulders, not just taking it like she was.”

Beth swallows.

“So yeah, I want to fuck you,” he says, lowering his face towards her. “But I don’t just want to fuck you. I like you here. In my house, my bed. My clothes.”

Remembering what she’s wearing, Beth flushes.

“You think about me?” he asks, thumb rubbing her jaw.

Beth nods.

“Yeah?”

Nod.

“When you were touching yourself?”

Nod.

“Tell me,” Rio coaxes.

“That night we kissed,” she whispers. “I went home and I fingered myself.”

“It get you off?”

“Uh huh,” Beth says with a shiver.

He squeezes her hand. “Good. One day,” he says, nose practically touching her own, “I’ll get my fingers in your pussy. My tongue. I’ll make you beg for me, Elizabeth. And when I give you what you want, when I put my cock inside of you, you’re gonna be mine.”

He kisses her. Beth feels like she should protest what he just said, but he feels so good that she doesn’t want to. And fuck, it sounds good, someone else taking some of the weight for her.

The kiss doesn’t last long, tapers off until he’s pressing little kisses against her lips and chin and jaw while she’s giggling.

His laughter is lower, but it makes a different kind of heat bloom in Beth’s belly.

“How about breakfast?” he asks.

Beth nods.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Warnings** : Boomer comes into the bar. Recognizing Beth, he attempts to leverage his knowledge of her real job to make her have sex with him. When Beth refuses, he attempts to assault her. Rio arrives and shoots Boomer. (So, basically canon typical Boomer.)
> 
> Thank you to medievalraven and neveroffanon who beta'd this and to everyone reading and leaving comments! Title is a line from Point Break.
> 
> As previously mentioned, it's all written and I'll be posting new chapters once a week. Some chapters will have more specific warnings in the notes, so please keep an eye on them. I’ll be adding to the tags as well. If there's ever anything that you feel I should also be warning or tagging for, please let me know.


	8. Canary

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Beth finds herself getting more and more tangled up in Rio.

It turns out that Rio means an egg white omelette because that’s about all he can cook.

Beth giggles as she inspects his mostly empty pantry. “You really don’t cook, huh.”

“What can I say,” he replies, “I’m a man of many talents, but cooking ain’t one of ‘em.”

She shakes her head at him as she fumbles through making a coffee with his complicated machine. She’d worked as a barista in college for a little while and the steps are familiar, she just can’t figure out what button does what at first.

Rio whistles when she finishes steaming milk and even manages to even pull off a heart in the foam.

“Shit, I can’t do that and it’s my damn machine,” he says. “Make me a macchiato?”

She does and by the time she’s spooning foam onto the top of the little cup, he’s done making their breakfast.

“You’re staying here today,” he says after she’s taken a couple bites of the omelette.

“What?” Beth looks up at him from her plate.

“You heard me,” Rio says without changing his tone, cutting into his own breakfast.

She scoffs. “I’m not staying here.”

He looks at her as he chews, then sips his coffee. “You are.”

“Why?”

“Because last night I shot a man in front of you.” He says it so matter of factly that it seems to hit Beth again all at once and she can feel the blood draining from her face.

Seeing it, he sighs and reaches out to take her hand. “You got someone to stay with who can look after you, make sure you’re not getting in your head?”

Beth looks away. No one she can admit to.

“I’m gonna work from home for most of the day,” he tells her, squeezing her hand. “I got some shit I gotta do tonight, but Demon’ll come back. He’ll have some things to go over with you.”

“What?”

“He’s looking into who knew that Peterson guy was at the bar. Who might notice when he doesn’t show up places he normally does. Gonna make sure you know what to say if anyone comes asking.”

Beth swallows.

“Hey, hey,” Rio says, “don’t worry. Nothing bad’s gonna happen to you. This is just in case someone comes asking if he came in last night. They’re not gonna find shit. At the bar or anywhere.”

“What do you mean?” Beth can’t help herself.

Rio just lets go of her hand and gestures towards her plate. “Eat,” he commands.

He changes the topic after that, shifting to food.

“You can make bread?” he asks when Beth tells him. “Like from scratch?”

She nods. “It isn’t that impressive, Rio.”

“Yeah, it is,” he insists, then grins, looking younger. It’s easy, when he’s like this, to forget who he is. What he is. “When you gonna make me bread?”

“Do you have yeast, flour, and salt?”

He scratches his chin. “I got salt.”

“I can’t bake bread with just salt,” she tells him with a roll of her eyes, finishing her breakfast and moving to her coffee.

“What’s your favourite thing to cook?”

Beth thinks about it. “Cooking? Probably some type of curry.” She hesitates, then tells him a little more. “My ex didn’t like spicy food, so I didn’t make them a lot while we were married,” she says. “After the divorce, I think all I did for the first couple of months was make every food that he hated.”

He laughs. “Good. Don’t trust anyone who doesn’t like spicy food.”

“Is that a rule of business?” Beth teases.

Rio nods. “You bet your ass it is.”

He puts his dishes in the dishwasher, but sits at the table with her while she finishes her coffee.

“You’ve got your phone and shit, but you need anything else from your place?” he asks.

Beth shakes her head. Clothes would be nice, but she doesn’t want anyone in her apartment. Any and all signs of her job are well hidden, but she has no intention of running that risk unless absolutely necessary.

“Alright,” he says, standing up and kissing her on the forehead. “Someone’ll be by soon to drop off your car.”

She frowns at him. “What?”

“Car,” he repeats. “They’ll bring it here. Or park it at your place. But we can’t leave it at the bar.”

“Oh,” Beth says. “Right. Here is good.”

He nods. “I’ll be in the office. Demon said he set some clothes up for you. That gonna be okay for a day?”

“Yeah,” Beth tells him, before remembering that she doesn’t have any underwear.

“What’s that blush for?” he asks, touching her cheek.

Beth bites her lip. “I don’t have clean underwear,” she admits.

Rio chuckles. “Don’t worry about it,” he tells her. “You can wear some of mine. He give you those too?”

Beth shakes her head.

“Right,” he pulls her up from the chair, “we’ll get you sorted out first, then I’ll be in the office.”

“Can I sit with you?” she asks. The idea of sitting alone somewhere in his big house isn’t exactly…comforting. It’s only after she asks that she remembers that there’s other things she could be doing in his office, like listening in on phone calls. Seeing how he runs his business.

She’s not expecting him to nod and say, “Yeah,” in response. He’s just going to let her into his inner sanctum because she asked him to. “Might have to kick you out while I make some calls later,” he admits, “but that’ll be in the afternoon.”

Beth glances at the clock. “It’s almost the afternoon now.”

Rio makes his way up the stairs, Beth walking next to him. “Afternoon for our type of people,” he says.

He takes her back to his bedroom and leads her into a walk in closet that is to die for.

“You own suits?” Beth asks, studying a railing that holds nothing but jackets.

“Own a tux too,” he replies, pulling out a drawer. “C’mere.”

She returns to his side.

“You want boxers or briefs?”

“Briefs are good,” Beth says. She can’t help peeking in the drawer as he pulls a few pairs out for her.

“You wanna see my underwear,” he teases, “all you gotta do is ask, sweetheart.”

Caught looking, Beth blushes.

“Get dressed, shower, whatever,” he tells her. “I’ll do the same. Come to the office when you’re ready.”

Beth is tempted to say something about showering together, just to see how he reacts, but she knows that if he asks, she would take him up on the offer and it would be too much to be pressed against him, naked and wet.

Rio seems to be thinking the same thing, his face soft with a hint of hunger.

“Not yet,” he murmurs, brushing his thumb over the dimple in her chin. “Not today.”

Beth nods. “I’ll go to the other room.” She takes the underwear and bolts.

The shower is just as nice this morning as it was last night, nicer even, because she’s not trying to get anyone’s blood off her skin. She takes her time, tests out different settings.

Wearing his underwear makes Beth shiver as she slides it up her legs. It’s weird, fits terribly, but she’s glad for it when she’s pulling on a pair of his too long sweatpants. She rolls them at the hem and at the waist, finds a soft t-shirt and a grey cardigan that she wants to steal, then ventures out to find Rio.

He’s in the office, as he said he would be, dressed and working in some physical notebooks.

“Kicking it old school?” she comments when she joins him.

Rio smiles. “Something like that. You want something to read, there’s books on the shelf.” He’s distracted, caught up in whatever he’s doing, so Beth takes out her phone to check her messages.

There’s one from Court, thanking her for letting her leave early. Her sister is ok, but won’t be discharged for a few more days.

One from Teri saying that they’re going to be closed for a day or two.

One from Jessa asking why Teri just told her that the bar wasn’t gonna be open today.

Beth doesn’t know how to reply to any of them, so she just puts her phone down and checks out Rio’s bookshelf.

She shouldn’t be surprised by him anymore, but it still feels shocking when she sees the range of books he’s got. There’s some business-y focused ones and a few biographies, but the majority of them are fiction.

“You read crime fiction?” she asks, pulling out a detective novel.

“Surprised?”

She looks over at him. “A little.”

For a second, she thinks he’s gonna say something else, but he just goes back to his work. Beth wonders if this has anything to do with the fact that he’s never been caught. She puts the detective book away - she’s not in the mood for reading about murder.

There are some books of poetry too, but when Beth pulls one out, it’s in Spanish and there’s no way that her own basic Spanish is up to the task, so she slides it back in place.

She finally settles on something, a collection of short stories, and takes it with her to the couch she’d fallen asleep on the previous night.

It’s almost easy to relax in Rio’s space. He works quietly, the only sounds are the turning of pages and the occasional typing on his laptop.

Physical ledgers would explain a lot, Beth thinks. They’re probably written in some kind of cypher too, if she had to guess. Something that someone can’t just pick up and read in a way that’ll make sense. She longs to look through the pages, see how he’s doing it. The longer she spends with Rio, the more impressed she is.

Although, she thinks, maybe she shouldn’t be, considering she’s still here.

“You’ve been staring at that page for a while,” Rio comments, making her blink and look up at him. “Distracted?”

Beth nods. “A little.”

He closes the book that he’s working on and comes over to the couch to sit beside her. “You thinking about it?” he asks, touching her forearm gently.

Beth has no way to explain that she’s seen men die before, has even pulled the trigger once or twice.

She shrugs. “Thinking about lots of stuff,” she responds, closing the book in her lap.

“Tell me,” Rio suggests, running his fingers along the inside of her forearm wrist to elbow and back again. “Tell me about what’s in your head.”

“Work, life, death, I guess,” she says. Keeps it vague. “I have a shift tomorrow. You gonna let me out of your sight?”

His lips turn up a little at the corners, but it’s not quite a smile. “Not sure that’s a good idea.”

Beth glances at him. “And if someone comes looking for that guy? Isn’t it suspicious if I just…disappear?”

He frowns. “I’m not saying forever. I’m saying a couple of days and I’ll take you back, we’ll see how you do.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Beth asks.

Rio curls his fingers around her wrist and lifts it into his lap. “Means that you might think that this isn’t a big deal for now, but you might walk into that bar and react badly. Give yourself a couple days to adjust, okay?”

He has a point. Beth nods.

“And then I go back to my place and I -“ she stops talking when his grip tightens a little. He stops himself before he squeezes her hand and looks a little surprised at his own reaction. “I’m going back to my place, Rio.”

“Not sure that’s such a good idea either.”

Beth pulls her hand from his.

“Come on,” Rio says, tone making it clear that she’s not gonna win an argument with him right now, “you attract trouble like a fucking magnet, Elizabeth. Add to that what you told me about your neighbour last night and the fact that security at your apartment is shit…” he trails off.

“And how would you know that?” she snaps at him.

He ignores the question, just keeps looking at her with reproach.

“I’ll put more locks on the door,” she says.

“Doesn’t do much good when the door’s basically made of cardboard,” is his response. “Look, you know I’ve got the room. You don’t even have to see me if you don’t want to. I’d rather have you pissed at me, but safe than content that you’ve bossed me around and dead.”

“I’m not staying at your place!” Beth shoves the book aside, ignoring it when it thumps onto the ground.

“You’ve got a sister, right?”

She freezes. “Fuck you.”

“How would you feel if your sister was being this reckless with her safety?” he asks. He knows he’s got her with this. “How would you feel if your sister got hurt because she was too stubborn to accept help from someone?”

“Yeah, well I’m not your sister,” Beth tells him, crossing her arms over her chest.

“No shit,” he mutters. “But I don’t want you in danger if I can help it.”

Rio watches her carefully, then hesitantly reaches out to touch her shoulder. “I’m not saying that you can’t take care of yourself, Elizabeth. I’m just offering you some help, alright?”

“Really? Because it feels kind of like you want me under your thumb.”

He jerks back, dropping his hand.

“I think I’m going to go be alone for a while,” Beth tells him, bending down to pick up the book and taking it with her downstairs.

She takes a seat on one of his stylish looking couches, relieved when it’s not uncomfortable to sit on. She reads a short story.

And then another.

Her curiosity about the space grows with every word that she reads until she sighs and puts the book down. There’s art on the walls, something abstract, so Beth wanders over to that.

Tilting her head, she takes in the mixes of blues and greens that take up the two outer canvases and most of the centre one. There’s a splotch of warm colours - red, orange, yellow - near the middle and as Beth stares at it, it takes on the vague form of a person.

She blinks and it disappears, but solidifies again as she lets her focus drift.

Two people, she thinks. Maybe.

Had he picked this piece because it spoke to him somehow? Or had he just thought that it looked nice? Or maybe someone else had chosen it for him, thinking that it would suit the space.

She steps back from the paintings and walks around the edges of the living room. The downstairs is almost entirely open plan, but it’s been designed in such a way that the spaces feel separated.

There’s a door that leads outside to a large deck and looking at the glass wall, Beth thinks that it might actually be able to be folded back, turning the deck into an extension of the living room and opening the house to the elements. It seems ridiculous for Michigan.

She tries to open the door, but it doesn’t budge. Sighing, she steps away from it and starts to move on only to stop short when there’s a click.

Beth looks at the door, pulls it.

This time, it opens.

She shivers, a combination of the still cool weather and something deeper - the knowledge that Rio had seen her wandering and had opened the door for her. She grabs a throw blanket and wraps it around her shoulders before going out.

She pulls the door shut behind her, seeing that there’s a keypad out here as well. It seems so ludicrous considering the glass wall, but Beth gets a feeling that it isn’t just glass.

Moving to the edge of the deck, she sees a set of stairs that goes down - towards the garage maybe. If she had to guess, she’d say that there will be another keypad down there. Layers and layers of security.

She leans against the railing and looks out at the lake.

She went to the ocean once, on a vacation with Dean. She had thought that it would be so impressive and it had been beautiful, but it hadn’t felt anymore endless than this, staring out at the lake. There’s no land in sight, no distant shore making it feel contained.

If you can’t swim, what’s the difference between a lake and an ocean?

Beth pulls the throw tighter around herself.

She almost doesn’t hear Rio approaching. She thinks he might make a sound on purpose so that she won’t panic. She looks over her shoulder at him as he walks across the deck, a mug in his hands.

He sets it on the ledge by her elbow.

“I just don’t want you to get hurt,” he says.

Beth nods and tilts her head back a little. He sees it for what it is, an invitation, and leans down to kiss her as the breeze picks up, making the steam curling up from the mug blow away.

A little while later, she’s curled up inside with the mug of tea - peppermint because Rio wasn’t sure what she liked - as Rio talks quietly to Demon.

“I’ll be back in a few hours,” he says, walking over to her. “Demon’s gonna go over some stuff with you about last night. If it’s too much, just tell him -“

“I’m fine, Rio,” Beth says. “Go do whatever it is you have to do.”

He sighs and shakes his head, but he’s smiling a little when he kisses her temple before heading down the stairs to the garage.

“Your car’s here now,” Demon informs her, taking off his boots before joining her in the living room. Is that a rule in Rio’s house? Rio’d been wandering around barefoot, but she hadn’t thought much of it.

He has a bag in his hand which he holds up. “This was in the passenger seat. Yours, I assume?”

Beth nods, pleased to have her purse back. There’s an extra pair of shoes in there, she doesn’t have to worry about that later. Whenever it is that she leaves.

“Rio said that we had to go over some stuff,” she asks, setting down the mug - almost empty now anyways.

Demon sets the bag down and sits in the kitchen. Ah, he expects her to join him. She does, but not without giving him a pointed look.

“You closed last night,” he says. “Your co-worker had to rush to the hospital, so you were by yourself for the last little bit. Some guy came in after last call, tried to get a drink. You told him no, he got a little upset, but Rio showed up to drop off something for Teri and made him leave.”

Beth nods. It’s easy enough to remember, close to the truth.

“Then he had you come to his place.”

“And who is Rio to me in this scenario?” Beth asks.

Demon just looks at her in a way that reminds her of Turner. Like he’s sniffing her out, evaluating her for weakness, any hint of a lie.

“Considering how cozy you look, I’m thinking boyfriend is a safe title,” he tells her. “Am I wrong?”

Beth doesn’t look away. “Sure. Do I know why the bar is closed today?”

“Power surge last night burst some circuits and Teri had to bring in an electrician. That’s all you gotta know about that,” Demon explains.

“Alright. Did Rio drive me here?” It’s the kind of question that a good detective would ask when checking her story.

Demon shakes his head. “I did. Rio had a few more things to finish up.”

“Why didn’t I drive myself?”

He seems a mixture of impressed and concerned. “You don’t need to give them all of that,” he says.

“No, but I need to have an answer if they ask. I get the feeling that when it comes to things involving Rio, they ask,” Beth replies softly.

Demon cocks his head. “You been questioned before?”

Beth smiles. “I can neither confirm nor deny that,” she tells him. “Let’s just leave it at misspent youth.”

That makes him laugh. “Maybe you’ve got what it takes after all.”

“What’s that mean?” Beth asks.

Demon taps his fingers on the countertop. “Rio likes to think that he needs to keep work and a relationship separate. It don’t work like that though. Women find out what he does, they get weird, even if they like what his money and power brings them.”

Beth swallows. “That happened a lot?”

“No,” Demon admits, “but there’s plenty of reasons for that. He’s a good guy, no matter what other people might try to say.”

“Jessa, at the bar,” she clarifies when there’s no sign of recognition, “said something similar. I admire a man who inspires loyalty. It means he takes things seriously, doesn’t take people for granted. That’s more than can be said about most.”

“True,” he agrees.

Beth moves to another question. “And my clothes?”

“Destroyed.”

Beth isn’t quite sure that she believes him and lets her distrust slip through a little. Destroyed? Or being held onto in case she becomes a problem? But she nods.

“Can I go to my place?” she asks. “I don’t exactly have any of my stuff here and Rio said I should be prepared to stay for a while.”

“Tomorrow,” is Demon’s response.

Beth sighs. “Well then, can I go grocery shopping? Rio’s fridge is abysmal. I’m pretty sure he survives on egg white omelettes and take-out.”

Demon laughs. “He’s still that bad, huh?” He chuckles, shaking his head. “I think he burned water once.”

Beth bites back a grin. “So, grocery shopping?”

“He has a service,” Demon answers. “I’ll check with him how to order and then you can fill his cabinets to your heart’s content.”

She wants to go out, but she nods. “If that’s everything, I’m going to go read now.”

Beth returns to the couch, although Demon interrupts her a few minutes later with pen and paper, tells her to make a grocery list. He watches as she opens and closes every single drawer and cupboard in the kitchen. Rio has spices, it seems, and oats. Honey, tea, coffee, cereal. She smiles when she sees some popsicles in his freezer.

By the time she’s done making the list, it fills a whole page.

“It’s specific,” she says, passing it to Demon. “Unsalted butter, how many onions, that kind of thing.”

Demon raises an eyebrow, but nods and retreats to do something with it.

A little over an hour later, the food arrives, giving Beth something to do. There’s leftover pizza that they eat for dinner, although Beth makes a salad to go with it.

He doesn’t complain about the vegetables, just digs in and eats what Beth doesn’t. He must catch her surprise, because he grins and pats his stomach, which appears firm to the touch.

“I’m a growing boy,” he says.

Rio comes back as they’re doing the dishes. Demon had insisted on helping since Beth had cooked, but it felt too weird to just sit around with nothing to do.

They both stop talking at the sound of the garage door opening and closing at the bottom of the stairs, then footsteps.

“Don’t stop on my account,” Rio calls out.

Demon finishes rinsing off the salad spoons and puts them to dry. “Hey boss,” he greets Rio. “Need to talk to you for a minute.”

Rio nods as he takes off his jacket, hanging it by the stairs. “In the office. I’ll meet you up there.”

Demon nods, patting his hands dry on a tea towel before leaving them alone.

Does he have access to Rio’s office? Or will he wait outside the door for Rio to come up and let them both in.

“You okay?” Rio asks, walking to the sink and leaning a hip against the counter.

Beth nods. “I’m good. You?”

He smiles at her. “I’m good. Any problems with the grocery delivery?”

“Nope. Went just fine,” she replies, glancing at the almost empty sink.

Even though it isn’t all that late in comparison to her work nights, Beth just feels tired. “I think I might get ready for bed,” she tells him.

“Alright,” he says, reaching up to tuck a piece of her hair out of her face. “If you wanna take a bath or something, go ahead. And -“ he pauses, looking more unsure than Beth has ever seen him, “you decide which bed you sleep in.”

It’s almost sweet, the way that he says it. Beth goes up on her toes and he leans down, their lips just brushing. “Okay,” she says when she sinks back down. “Demon’s waiting.”

He laughs at the reminder and leaves, brushing a hand over her lower back as he moves.

Beth finishes the dishes in silence.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to medievalraven and neveroffanon who beta'd this and to everyone reading and leaving comments! Title is a line from Point Break.
> 
> As previously mentioned, it's all written and I'll be posting new chapters once a week. Some chapters will have more specific warnings in the notes, so please keep an eye on them. I’ll be adding to the tags as well. If there's ever anything that you feel I should also be warning or tagging for, please let me know.


	9. Check In

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Beth's reminded what her job is.

That night, Beth decides that it’s best if she sleeps in the guest room. She has to maintain some kind of distance between them or the next thing she knows, she’ll be so tied up in him that there’s absolutely no hope of separating herself once this case comes to an end.

Rio is just waking up when Beth is getting ready to leave.

“Morning,” he greets her, coming to stand next to her. “Going to your place?”

Beth nods.

“Then you’re coming back.” He says it half like a question, but Beth hears it like a command and bristles. “Please?” he adds.

He looks almost sweet, wearing nothing but a pair of sweats and unzipped hoodie. His expression is soft and when he reaches out his hand, she takes it.

“I could be persuaded,” she says.

He grins, steps closer. “How can I persuade you?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” Beth teases right before he bends down to kiss her. It’s a soft kiss, the kind that Dean used to give her in the mornings sometimes as he walked by her on the way to the coffee maker. His had never felt like Rio’s does though.

“Come back,” he says when he pulls away.

Beth nods and his smile gets bigger.

“I’ll open the garage and the gate for you,” he says, nudging her towards the stairs. He buzzes her through the door into the garage and she’s struck again by how empty the space seems. Rio has two cars - a black Cadillac and a G Wagon - but even with her car here too, there’s tons of room to spare. Does he have a lot of people over?

She gets into her car and starts it, the garage door seemingly opening of its own volition. She drives out and it shuts behind her. The gate does the same.

It takes her half an hour to get back to her apartment and all she wants to do is change into some of her own clean clothes.

Beth unlocks her apartment door and immediately knows that something’s wrong. Her hand goes to her side only for her to remember halfway there that she doesn’t have a weapon with her.

“Relax, Boland,” a familiar voice calls out from her kitchen, “it’s just me.”

Beth does not relax. Instead, she tenses, her whole body springing to alert.

She locks the door behind her and walks to the kitchen to find Agent James Turner sitting at her table and eating a bowl of her ice cream.

“Agent Turner,” she greets him.

He smiles. “Take a seat.”

“Nice of you to offer,” Beth mutters, but sits down after getting herself a cup of water. “What’s this about? I thought we’d agreed that there would be no direct contact here.”

“That was before you disappeared for a few days,” Turner says.

Beth shrugs. “I told Phoebe I would be out of reach.”

Turner hums, spooning up more ice cream. It’s the Ben & Jerry’s too, the ass.

“You didn’t tell her that you’d be out of reach because you were staying at Rio’s house.” He watches her as he says it. “In his bed, I presume?”

“What makes you think that?” Beth asks.

Turner reaches into his jacket and Beth tenses, relaxing only a little when she sees it’s photographs. Turner puts down his spoon and starts setting them down one by one. The first, Beth on the back deck of Rio’s house, wrapped in a blanket. The photo was clearly taken from a distance, zoomed in as close as possible.

“I admit, I was surprised to see you there,” Turner says before setting down the next. This one has Rio in it, coming from behind her and setting a mug on the railing by her elbow. “He wasn’t your assignment and I had no reason to think that the two of you would even cross paths, but then…”

The third photo is of Rio directing her face towards his, bending down. Beth doesn’t even need to see the fourth picture to know what it is, but she looks at it anyways, sees the two of them locked in a kiss. Her arms around his neck, his hands on her ass.

“And?” she says. “I saw an opportunity, I took it.”

“Why did he even take you back to his house?”

Beth meets his eyes. “Someone tried to attack me at work.”

Turner’s surprised by that. “What?”

“A guy at the bar,” she says, not wanting to give him the details about Boomer, “after we closed one night. It was just me and he came in through the door before I could lock it. He tried to -“ she swallows. “I hit him on the head with a bottle. He went down. Rio was there.”

Turner nods.

“Someone had creeped on me before and Rio had witnessed it, chased the guy away. He said he wanted to make sure that I was safe,” Beth says. “He had one of his guys take me to his place.”

“Is the man dead?”

Beth shrugs. “I don’t know. Rio said it wasn’t my problem.”

“And that led to you sucking face?” Turner presses.

“He was nice to me,” she explains, “and I could tell that he was interested.”

“Have you slept with him?”

Beth shakes her head. “No, but we’ve kissed.”

Turner looks at the clock over Beth’s shoulder. “If you get too involved with him, it’ll taint the investigation. That being said, you’re in a better position than anyone’s ever achieved with this guy. It’s my ass on the line if you fail, Boland.”

Give me something, is what he meant. Give me something to make it look like this is progressing as planned and I won’t pull you out.

The idea that’s been percolating in her head ever since Rio had started paying attention to her makes itself known. It’s a good plan, but it most likely means collateral damage. She lifts her chin.

“Eddie,” she says.

Turner’s brow furrows.

“He’s one of Rio’s guys. I think you can turn him,” she tells him. “I’m sure you can be creative with it. He has access to a lot of information about incoming shipments.”

“I can work with that,” Turner says.

Turner stands and starts to leave, but he stops and looks over his shoulder at Beth. “If you fuck this up,” he tells her, “nothing’s gonna save you.”

And doesn’t she know it. Beth listens to Turner leaving, then dashes over to the door to lock it up after him.

She’s shaking a little, she realizes. She makes herself wash the bowl and spoon that Turner had used, but something about the way that he’d acted has Beth itching to leave the apartment. Had he searched through her things? Bugged her?

Stay with me, that’s what Rio had said. What did it mean that she was more comfortable staying with a criminal kingpin than in her apartment now that her boss has been in it? She goes to her bedroom, packs a bag with some clothes, her toiletries, a couple of things that she doesn’t want to leave lying around. A few other items, she destroys.

When she’s certain that she’s not leaving anything behind that either Turner or Rio can use against her, she takes her things down to her car. She needs to do it in a couple of trips and on the third and final trip down, she runs into Steven on the stairs.

“Moving?” he asks.

Beth lifts an eyebrow, then smiles. “Staying with my boyfriend,” she says. “He doesn’t like the idea of me being alone. That’s Rio.”

Steven recognizes the name and blanches. He steps out of her way and Beth passes him, heading downstairs without even feeling the need to look back. Just using Rio’s name was like a coat of armour around here. It gives Beth a little thrill and she’s smiling to herself when she pushes out the door to the garage only to come to a dead stop when she sees a guy leaning against her car.

“You Beth?” he asks, putting out his cigarette.

She nods.

“Rio said I should help you with any stuff you need to move,” he tells her. “I’m Dags.”

The name pings a memory of him and Rio at the bar together once or twice.

“This is it,” she says. “The rest is in my car already.”

“Keys,” he demands, holding out his hand.

“I’m driving my own car,” Beth tells him, moving towards the driver’s side.

Dags shakes his head. “No, you aren’t. You’re calling Rio.”

She scowls at him. “No, I’m driving.”

“Look, I’ll take the keys from you if I have to, but Rio’s waiting for your call. You want to keep him waiting?”

“Maybe I do,” she snaps, passing over the keys.

Dags snorts. “Your funeral,” he mutters under his breath. He spends a few minutes adjusting the seat since he’s got like a foot on her.

She waits until they’ve been driving for a few minutes before giving in to call him.

“Hi,” she greets him.

“Hey,” he replies. “Everything good at the apartment?”

“Yeah, although I’m a little confused about why I need a chauffeur.”

There’s noise in the background that abruptly cuts off.

“I do know how to drive,” she tells him, irritated. “And I don’t appreciate being told what to do.”

He’s quiet. “You know the codes to get into my place?” he asks. “How to open the gates, the garage, the door? How to turn off the alarm system?”

Beth huffs. “You know I don’t.”

“So you got a chauffeur,” Rio says.

“You could just tell me.”

He laughs. “Sweetheart,” he sounds amused, “I like you, but I don’t give that shit out to just anyone. Dags’ll stay with you.”

“So he’s also a babysitter.”

“Will it sting less if I say he’s a guard?” Rio shoots back and Beth stiffens. She’s about to ask why the hell he needs to have a guard on her when he sighs. “Look, I don’t let people into my house, Elizabeth. You gotta realize that by now. It’s not that I distrust you, but I don’t trust you completely yet.”

“Oh.” Beth looks down at the hand not holding the phone to her ear.

“He won’t bother you,” Rio says, “but if you need something, ask him. I gotta go.”

“Right, okay.”

“I’ll see you later.” He hangs up before Beth can say goodbye.

When Dags lets them into the house, Beth immediately heads upstairs with as much of her stuff as she can carry. Dags carries the rest of it, but leaves it at the door of the guest bedroom.

Even without Rio being at home, Beth doesn’t dare snoop around. It wouldn’t surprise her if he had security measures hidden throughout the house and she doesn’t want to give him a reason to mistrust her. Not to mention Dags’ presence downstairs. He’s watching TV and Beth could probably move quietly enough not to be heard, but if there’s any kind of alarm anywhere and she trips it, she doesn’t doubt that Dags has orders.

So instead, she syncs up her phone to his speakers and plays music while cooking dinner with the ingredients she’d brought from the apartment that need to be used up. Rio’s kitchen is gorgeous despite his apparent lack of talent and interest in that area.

The sky is starting to darken when Dags, who has stayed mostly silent all afternoon, gets up and heads down to the garage.

Frowning, she drains the spaghetti. Does that mean something bad?

Rio had given the impression that Dags was going to be watching her while he wasn’t around.

The door to the garage opens again and she hears Rio say, “Thanks, man.”

Oh, that’s why Dags had left. Babysitting was done for the day.

He comes up the stairs and his eyes go right to her.

“Hey.”

“Hi,” Beth replies. “Dinner’s almost ready.”

“I could smell that all the way in the garage,” he says, smiling. “Was trying to remember when I got a live-in chef.”

Beth laughs nervously. “I hope that’s ok and it’s nothing fancy but -“

He praises her all through the meal, even though it really is just spaghetti and meatballs.

“You realize how uncommon home cooked meals are for me?” he asks when Beth tries to wiggle out of his compliments. “Ones that taste good, at least. Fuck, it’s been a while. You’re gonna spoil me, huh.”

“Just because you’re ok surviving on takeout doesn’t mean that I am,” she tells him primly.

He chuckles, leaning back in his chair and looking at her.

“How was your place?” he asks.

“It was my place,” Beth replies. “Got a bunch of stuff. Told off my neighbour.”

“Told off your neighbour?”

“Yeah,” she says. “The one I mentioned last night. He was kind of a creep.”

“What do you mean?”

It’s then that she catches the edge to his voice. “Nothing,” she says.

He doesn’t look like he believes her, so she rolls her eyes.

“Rio, every woman in this city knows a creep. Mine just happens to live on the same floor of my building. This may come as a shock to you, I know how to take care of myself.”

That makes him give her a flicker of a smile, but it doesn’t last. “That who gave you the bruise on your arm?”

She stiffens.

“Why do you want to know?” she asks.

“Can’t I want to know things about you?” Rio replies.

“You can, but it’s not exactly something interesting about me.”

He nods. “Guess that’s true. Tell me something interesting about you then.”

And she walked into that one. Beth blushes. “Like what?”

“I don’t know,” he says. “Something.”

Beth bites on her lip. “Well, you know that I know how to cook,” he laughs at that, “but when I was younger, I always wanted to work at a bakery.”

“Yeah?”

She nods. “There was this one near my house that we always used to go to, me and my dad before he left. He loved danishes and they had these lemon ones that were amazing. But my favourite was the sugar cookies. I’ve never tasted anything like them ever since. We would just buy a bag full sometimes, but whenever I went in, they always gave me one for free. Well, all the kids. I never had to share it either, my dad let me have the whole thing.”

Beth smiles at the memory of holding her dad’s hand, walking home and eating those sugar cookies.

“I thought that must be the greatest thing in the world, to grow up and work in a place where you got to give kids sugar cookies.”

Rio picks up her hand and starts to trace the lines in her palm. “What changed your mind?”

The question sobers her. “Lots of stuff.”

“You ever think about doing it now?” he asks. “I’ve never had your cookies, but I bet they’re great.”

“Flatterer,” Beth replies, curling her fingers over her palm and pulling her hand away. He lets her. “But you aren’t wrong. I make a great sugar cookie.”

“It still open?”

“The bakery?” Beth asks. When he nods, she sighs. “No. Burned down when I was eleven. The owners were pretty old, so they decided to just retire. Never found another sugar cookie like theirs again.”

He smiles.

Beth makes herself go back to the guest bedroom again, all too aware of how good it would feel to give in and how devastating the fallout would be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to medievalraven and neveroffanon who beta'd this and to everyone reading and leaving comments! Title is a line from Point Break.
> 
> As previously mentioned, it's all written and I'll be posting new chapters once a week. Some chapters will have more specific warnings in the notes, so please keep an eye on them. I’ll be adding to the tags as well. If there's ever anything that you feel I should also be warning or tagging for, please let me know.


	10. Snitch

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Beth sees some familiar faces.

Two nights later, Beth goes back to working at the bar, but she doesn’t go back to her apartment anymore. Instead, she returns to Rio’s place every night after close. 

A car follows her when she drives back to his place and she’s not sure if it’s the FBI or Rio. Or if she dares ask.

Jessa pulls her aside on the first night she goes back to work at the bar. “You okay?”

“I’m fine,” Beth tells her. “Why?”

“You’ve been out for a few days,” Jessa points out, “which happen to coincide with us being shut down for a few days.”

Beth shrugs. “Worked out well,” she says. “No one had to cover those shifts.”

Jessa looks at her.

“The creep at my apartment,” Beth explains. “It came up with Rio, he moved me out.”

Jessa softens a little, then suspicion fills her expression. “Where are you staying now?”

“Rio’s,” Beth admits.

“Right.” Jessa just nods.

Beth is surprised by Jessa’s lack of surprise. “That’s it?”

“You’re a grown woman, Beth,” Jessa says. “I gave you a warning based on what I know of him, but you’re allowed to do whatever you want. Besides, it’s been pretty obvious that he’s sweet on you.”

“Sweet on me?” Beth snorts. “What is this, the 60s?”

It makes Jessa laugh and the air clears. “Just make sure to take care of yourself,” Jessa says. “It’s easy to let a guy like that handle everything for you and then the next thing that happens…there’s not really a you left.”

Beth nods.

Jessa’s right. Rio’s an overwhelming presence, even when he isn’t around. She’s not even sure that he does it on purpose. But in the days that she’s spent at his place, she’s found herself eager to startle a smile out of him, make him laugh or kiss her softly in ways that have nothing to do with her job.

And all the while, his kisses get deeper and longer. Beth returns them every time, initiates others. They haven’t gone any farther than that and a few grazes of his hands over her body as she moves around the kitchen or they watch TV.

It’s maddening.

“There’s a party tonight,” he tells her when they finish breakfast the morning after her talk with Jessa.

“Yeah?” Beth runs hot water over the plates so that the syrup from their pancakes won’t dry onto them.

“Wanna come with me?” he asks.

Beth thinks about it. “What kind of party?”

“Nothing too wild,” he promises. “It’s at a place in the city. Wanna introduce you to some people.”

Beth stiffens. “Who?”

“You’ll see,” he tells her, settling his hand on her ass. “Wear something like you did that night at the club.”

She swallows. “I don’t have anything like that. Just that dress.”

Rio hums. “Then go out and get something,” he suggests. “Wear it for me.”

He slides his hand into her sleep pants and under the fabric of her panties so that he’s cupping her bare ass.

“Can you do that for me, Elizabeth?”

She shivers as he kisses her neck. Nods.

“Good,” he says, pulling his hand out and stepping away. “We’ll meet there at ten. One of the boys’ll drive you.”

“I can drive myself,” she reminds him.

He laughs. “No parking,” he says on his way up the stairs.

With instructions to wear something provocative and sexy that night, Beth needs to get her ass in gear, so she gets ready quickly and heads out not long after Rio does.

No one follows her to the meeting with Phoebe and she’s three times as careful as usual.

“So,” Phoebe says when Beth sits across from her, “change of circumstances, huh?”

Beth shrugs.

“Turner tried to take over my role, you know,” Phoebe tells her. “When I explained that it might disrupt your cover, he then tried to get me to record this meeting.”

She stiffens.

“I’m not,” her case agent tells her, dipping a french fry into her milkshake. “Told him that might blow it too. As it is, we’re old friends from high school that keep in touch, meet up. You know that I work for the government, but you don’t know much more than that. I mostly push papers at the FBI field office.”

Beth nods. “Of course. And Dorothy’s been seeing us here for months at this point.”

“How you holding up?” Phoebe asks. Beth is pretty sure that there’s actual concern on the other woman’s face.

“I’m fine.”

“Really? Because from where I’m standing it looks like the kingpin of a criminal enterprise moved you into his place as a kept woman,” Phoebe says.

“We haven’t slept together,” Beth hisses, right as Dorothy drops off her own lunch. The waitress gives Beth an amused look and a wink.

“Uh huh.” Phoebe goes on eating.

“We haven’t,” Beth repeats.

“And if he pressures you into it?”

Beth doesn’t look at Phoebe. “He won’t.”

“And if you want to?”

“I’ll cross that bridge if I come to it,” Beth responds.

They wrap up their meeting and Beth goes shopping. Part of her wonders if she should go all out, get something tiny and sparkly that’s barely clothing, but it’s not her style and Rio knows it. Plus she has no idea where he’s actually taking her.

So she finds something that’s black and clingy, but covers up enough for her to be comfortable wearing it.

She runs some errands, spends the afternoon alone at Rio’s place, subtly exploring as much as she can. She’s got codes now that’ll let her in through the gate and the garage, although she knows now that no one has the same codes. The system records who goes in and out and when. There’s no way for her to pass on the code to Turner to have someone come in and sweep the place while they’re out.

Whatever’s behind all of the closed and locked doors upstairs stays unknown to her.

Beth eats alone, then spends the early evening getting ready.

Rio calls around 8:30.

“Someone’s gonna be there to pick you up at 9,” he tells her. There’s a bunch of noise in the background, although it’s muffled, like he’s in a room with the door closed.

Beth puts the phone on speaker and sets it down on the bathroom counter so she can keep doing her hair.

“Not gonna tell me where we’re going?” she asks.

“Nah, I think I like keeping you on your toes,” Rio tells her. “You’ll be ready?”

“I’ll be ready for something,” Beth says. “I don’t know if it’ll be the right party.”

He laughs. “Any party we’re at is the right one.”

He hangs up, leaving Beth to glare at the phone. That didn’t even make sense! 

She finishes up her hair, aware that it probably looks like she did absolutely nothing to it. She needs it to look like that though to counter the heavy eyeshadow she’s wearing. It’s dark green - sets off her eyes and hair in the best way.

Beth doesn’t recognize the guy who picks her up at the house, but he’s got codes to get in and she figures that those are pretty hard to come by.

When Beth’s unnamed driver drops her off, Rio’s waiting for her outside and he grins at the sight of her.

“Mission accomplished?” Beth asks.

Rio nods, grabbing her face and kissing her. “Makes me wanna bend you over right here,” he murmurs, biting her lower lip, “and fuck you right now.”

Beth pushes him away. “You’re the one who wanted to take me to a party and told me to dress like this. You don’t get to mess it up.”

He laughs, escorting her into the building with a possessive hand on her ass.

She gets the impression that this party is pretty exclusive. The space isn’t overflowing and there’s a couple of people hanging out by the doors who pat down the person that enters after them.

Beth looks to Rio. “We don’t get the pat down?”

“I can give you one if you want,” he tells her, dipping his head low so that he doesn’t have to shout over the music.

“Very funny,” Beth tells him.

He guides her to a group of people, none of whom are familiar to Beth. She does recognize names, however, in particular, the group’s shared last name. Although they’re all young, the name is old school Italian in Detroit.

The men give her appreciative looks, but they always end by saying something to Rio like, “You’re a lucky man.” The two women are less interested. One downright scowls at Beth, although from what she can tell, it’s because the woman’s husband had just given Beth a bit of an eye fucking. The other woman seems to be a sister, not particularly interested in her or Rio.

At least that’s how it looks until Rio gets drawn aside.

“Kat,” the woman introduces herself, pulling Beth towards the bar. “What kind of date is Rio if he doesn’t even get you a drink before letting my brothers pull him away.”

Beth laughs, though she watches Kat carefully. She doesn’t know much about her, doesn’t know if there’s something she might resent Beth over. If maybe Kat’s one of the girls that Rio was one and done with.

But after a few minutes, Kat sighs. “You’re terrible at telling when someone’s flirting with you, aren’t you?”

Beth blinks, blushing as the other woman giggles.

“I’m with Rio,” Beth says, aware how that sounds.

Kat just leans in a little. “Doesn’t mean you can’t play around,” she replies.

Beth is flustered and unsure how to deal with it, but Rio’s return lets her relax for a moment before Kat leaves to join one of her brothers.

“And Kat,” Rio calls out before she’s more than a few steps away, his hand possessive on Beth’s back, “I don’t share.”

“You have in the past,” Kat teases over her shoulder. “Wonder what’s different this time?”

Beth sips on her bourbon.

“You gonna dance with me?” Rio asks once Kat’s gone.

“Is that you asking me?” Beth replies innocently.

He looks her up and down. “Finish your drink, Elizabeth.”

She shouldn’t be surprised that he’s a good dancer. Everything about him suggests a degree of athleticism, a knowledge of his body and how it moves. But it still surprises her.

Rio’s hands on her waist and hips, chest at one point, pull her closer and closer to him until she feels like every move that they make is as a pair.

Beth doesn’t know how long they dance for - it’s at least a few songs, has to be, although the end of one song blurs into the beginning of the next and time seems to collapse in on itself. Is every hour a second or every second an hour? She can’t tell.

Several times, others try to worm in between her and Rio. Most of them are paying attention to him and wanting him to return the favour. Every time, he just steps around them or pulls Beth and turns away.

She’s not sure why she feels a hot stab of jealousy with every interloper, but she does, though it fades with each incident as she realizes that Rio’s annoyance is mixed in with a hint of jealousy as well.

But eventually, she feels too hot to carry on. Rio follows her to the bar and drinks a water with her, passing it back and forth as his hand on her ass cups and squeezes it.

At one point, his head comes up and he must make eye contact with someone, because he nods before he leans down. “Let’s head over there,” he says.

Beth needs to recalibrate, so she shakes her head. “I’m going to go to the bathroom,” she replies before he can question her refusal. “I’ll meet you over there?”

In the bathroom, she pats cold water onto her face. It does nothing.

“Get it together, Beth,” she whispers to herself. Part of her is almost worried that she could be drunk, but she knows that she isn’t. It’s a different kind of intoxication, one she feels when Rio gets close to her, when he touches her and kisses her and -

She unlocks the bathroom door and leaves, walking past a line of other women.

For a moment, she can’t find Rio in the area that he’d indicated before she realizes that this place has a sunken area with seating, just like his living room.

He’s in a cluster of sofas, claiming one end of a long one, arm over the back.

Beth touches his shoulder when she passes, making him look up at her. He nods his head towards the empty seat next to him and he turns his head towards the guy on the other side of the spot, likely to tell him to move. But the woman on the chair closest to Rio is familiar. She’s one of the ones who tried to interrupt their dance and she’s staring at Rio like he’s a glass of water and she’s spent a week in the desert.

So instead, Beth sits across his lap, leaning her back against the armrest of the sofa and extending her legs out, the spike of her heel settling on the stranger’s thigh. It’s not unlike the position he found her in with Charlie, though she’s not sure if he remembers.

The guy makes a noise of surprise, but Beth ignores him, pressing her face against the side of Rio’s neck as his arms come up around her and he laughs softly.

“What is it?” he asks.

“Nothing.” She opens her mouth and sets her lips on his skin.

Beth sucks on the hinge of Rio’s jaw, enjoying when his hips nudge up against her. His hand fists in her hair and she half expects him to pull her away but instead, he holds her against him.

“Nothing, huh?” he rasps, the hand not in her hair reaching to her outside hip and sliding up her skirt. “Jealousy suits you, Elizabeth.”

She bites him and he grunts, pulling her hair as his fist clenches.

“You want me to fuck you?” he asks her. “That what you want? You want me to bend you over this couch and let everyone know who you belong to?”

Beth shivers. “Who you belong to,” she replies, lifting her head from his neck.

He chuckles, hand moving out from beneath her skirt only to slide back in, only this time in between her thighs. Beth closes her thighs, trapping his hand.

“What?” Rio teases the soft skin of the legs with his fingers. “You don’t want it anymore?”

There’s people all around them. Not everyone is paying attention to Rio and her, but there’s enough to make her feel self-conscious.

He hums as he presses a kiss to her temple.

“Sweetheart, you don’t get to play this game and then act surprised when I wanna join you,” he says, tickling her thighs with one hand and bringing her face to his with the other.

Beth kisses him enthusiastically. Slowly, she unclenches her thighs and Rio’s hand slides up even higher.

“Not here,” she says into his ear when she pulls away.

He tugs at her panties. “No?”

She shakes her head.

“Alright,” he agrees, taking his hand away, but keeping it on the inside of her thigh as he rejoins whatever conversation he was part of.

“The Yankees?” Rio laughs. “Don’t tell me you’re one of those, Noah, or I’m gonna have to fire you.”

Some others laugh as Beth settles more comfortably into his lap.

“Sorry,” someone - Noah - says. “Dad was a Yankees fan.”

There’s something about his voice that makes Beth look over at him. He’s a white guy, dressed casually, like most of the other guys at the party. There’s a girl cozied up next to him, Noah’s arm around her, hand playing with her hair.

She makes eye contact with him for a second before she sighs and lets her head fall heavy against Rio’s chest.

“You tire her out, Rio?” one of the other guys - Sid, Beth thinks his name is - laughs. “Can’t say I blame you.”

Rio nudges her. “You tired?”

Beth nods.

“We won’t stay long,” he says.

She smiles and lifts her head. “You sound like my mom at family gatherings,” she teases him.

“Believe me, sweetheart,” he replies, “I’m not your mother.”

Beth giggles and settles in. Rio’s found another water bottle and is sipping from it. She hasn’t seen him drink anything else all night. He offers it to her and she takes a big gulp before giving it back.

The conversation is surface level, about sports and cars and women. For all that he’d said that he wanted to introduce her to some people, Rio doesn’t seem inclined to actually do that.

“Charlie, you remember Elizabeth,” Rio says, making Beth pull up a little.

She meets Charlie’s eyes as he approaches the group. He’s surprised to see her, but he just blinks and moves on, taking a seat nearby and joining the conversation.

After a while, Rio squeezes her hip to draw her attention.

“Let’s go,” he says.

He starts to get up, her still in his arms, but Beth huffs and knocks his hands away so that she can stand. “I’m not that tired,” she tells him.

“Course not,” Rio agrees.

Beth struggles to bury the tension that she feels as they leave. No one bothers Rio as they move to the exit.

“Thought you said there wasn’t parking,” Beth says when he leads her around the corner to his car.

“There’s very minimal parking,” Rio tells her.

Beth gets in, shutting her eyes and swallowing as Rio goes around to his side.

She had recognized Noah.

And not just from anywhere.

From the FBI office.

She could remember him talking to Turner once, his gaze coming to her as she walked towards them. She’d only caught the tail end of their conversation, something about ice cream and breakups.

Beth leans against the door as Rio gets in.

“You really that tired?” he asks as he starts the engine.

She sighs. “Tired of the party.”

“Not a party girl?”

Beth groans and sits up. “I seem like a party girl to you?”

He smiles at her. “Alright, maybe not.” His eyes go down her body. “Suits you though.”

She sighs. “Thought you wanted to introduce me to some people,” she casually says, yawning as she does.

Rio hums. “And I did.”

Beth is confused. “I learned about three names,” she reminds him.

“Not that kind of introduction, Elizabeth,” he says, not looking over at her as he starts towards his house.

“What kind of introduction then?” Beth springs back to alert. He doesn’t answer. “Rio, what does that mean?”

“It means,” Rio says, finally turning his head at a stop light, “that people at that party now know not to fuck with you.”

“Would they have?” Beth asks.

He shrugs as his gaze goes back to the road. “Maybe. Maybe not. But I’m of the belief that it’s better to warn people off before they go and do something really fucking stupid. I don’t want you getting hurt.”

Beth relaxes back into her seat. “So that was you, what, claiming me?”

Rio laughs. “You think I’m a dog, pissing on my territory?” he drawls. “Nah. Think of it more like…” he pauses, “I put you on my insurance.”

“That’s pretty serious, don’t you think?”

“It is,” he agrees.

“Is there a reason you didn’t explain that?” Beth kicks her shoes off, wiggling her toes now that they’re free again.

“You don’t take it well when you think I’m trying to protect you,” he says.

“So you thought it’d be easier for both of us if you just didn’t say anything,” Beth concludes.

Rio doesn’t answer for a moment, seemingly thinking over how to reply. “We haven’t talked about what I do, not at length. To an extent, I intend to keep it that way. You don’t need to know a lot of shit. It’s better for both of us if you don’t.”

Beth shifts uncomfortably in her seat.

“This is one of those things I just need you to believe me on.”

“I don’t know what I’m believing,” Beth says.

He accelerates once they leave the busier streets. “Believe that I’m protecting your best interests.”

“And Charlie?” she asks.

Rio shrugs. “If I said I didn’t know if he was gonna be there tonight, would you believe me?”

Beth considers it. “I would.”

He turns his head towards her a little and smiles.

She doesn’t have a response for that, so she stays quiet for the rest of the drive.

Dropping her shoes at the top of the stairs, she beelines to the fridge and pours herself a glass of water. She didn’t drink a lot, but dancing had dehydrated her and she didn’t want even the slightest headache.

Rio follows, leaning against the counter opposite her.

“What are you playing at, Elizabeth?”

Beth’s eyes flick to his face. “What?”

“Sometimes you act like you’re cornered prey to me.” His expression is almost…hurt. “Like you’re playing along with me or something. Do you think I want that? Do you think that I’d hurt you?”

She looks down at her hands and clutches the glass. “No.”

“Because I’m not going to,” he continues, “but I’ve got no interest in being with a woman who would think that of me, who’s scared of me.”

“I don’t think that,” she tells him.

“Could you at least look me in the eye when you say that?” he mutters it, almost like he doesn’t expect her to acknowledge it.

Beth lifts her head. “I don’t think that you’d hurt me,” she clarifies, “and I’m not playing along with you. I’m just - I don’t know what we are, Rio. I mean, one day you own the bar that I work at and the next, I’m in your house and your bed when all we’ve ever done before is kiss. Once. And now you’re telling me that we went to a party so that people would know not to fuck with me, but that seems really fucking serious.”

“It is.”

“So what are we?”

He looks uncomfortable at the question. “Labels don’t work for us, I don’t think.”

“Then try to explain it,” Beth says.

Rio scratches his jaw, nails rasping against his facial hair.

“You’re important to me. I’m trying to walk this balance of keeping you safe and giving you the space that you seem to want. Space you probably need after that night in the bar.” Beth stiffens at his reference to Boomer. “I don’t know if you want me to touch you or stay away sometimes, but I know that I want to be around you.”

“Even if we haven’t had sex?”

Rio nods. “I told you, it’s about more than sex when it really matters.”

“You said something about being able to talk between rounds,” Beth says, remembering how he’d been baiting her that night.

“And right now, we’re in the pre-game,” he says with a slight smile. “I’m not in a rush to get you into bed if it ends up chasing you away. We’re making a foundation and that’s good enough for me.”

Beth swallows, realizing that he’s stepped closer as he spoke.

“And if I never want that?”

His face softens. “Then we’ll figure it out. But in the meantime, I don’t intend to leave you vulnerable to the dangers that come with being with me.”

He’s standing in her space now and after a brief hesitation, he reaches up to touch her face. Beth leans into the touch. When he lowers down to kiss her, she kisses right back, wrapping her hand around the back of his neck.

Rio must tire of bending down because he lifts her up to sit on the countertop and presses her legs open so that he can be close to her. Beth, for her part, wraps her legs around him as she moans into his mouth.

Without thinking, her hands go to the buttons of his shirt and she starts to undo them. He hesitates.

“I want to touch you,” Beth admits to him.

“Yeah?”

She nods.

He steps back, but before she can ask him what he’s doing, he helps her down from the counter. “Upstairs,” he says, taking her hand to lead her upstairs. It’s almost familiar, feels like a routine.

But he’s not usually leading her to his room, isn’t normally the one undoing the zipper at the back of her dress, sliding his big hands inside to roam over her waist. Beth shivers when he slides one all the way to her belly, his pinky finger just grazing the top of her panties.

“We only do what you’re comfortable with,” he tells her, kissing her shoulder.

Beth nods, then turns, wanting to undo the rest of his shirt. She’s seen him mostly naked before, has felt him pressed up against her, but it’s intoxicating to separate the sides of his shirt and reveal his toned chest and stomach. She repays the favour and strokes his belly too, making it jump.

“Ticklish?” she teases him.

“I will neither confirm nor deny,” Rio says back, pushing the straps of her dress aside until it starts to fall. He has to tug it a little when it catches on her hips, but he doesn’t seem to mind. “You’re so gorgeous,” he murmurs, bending down to lift her up again.

She laughs, grabbing onto him. “You know I can move on my own, right?”

He grins, nods. “But I like doing it for you.”

“Uh huh,” Beth says, not believing him entirely. “I think that you like showing off.”

“Is it working?”

Beth rolls her eyes, but pulls his face to hers as he sets her on the edge of his bed. “Maybe,” she admits before she kisses him. She shoves his shirt off, although it gets stuck at the wrists. She scowls at him as she goes to undo those buttons.

“Sorry,” he says, kissing her again. He swallows her small crow of triumph when she gets the buttons undone and pushes the shirt all the way off.

She’s about to go for his pants, but he pushes her back gently until she’s lying down and starts to kiss his way down her neck. He cups her left breast and Beth puts her hand over his and squeezes, wanting him to know that he doesn’t have to be quite so gentle.

He chuckles, but follows her lead. He kisses her collarbone, then down between her breasts.

Beth wants his mouth on her, so she arches her back in order to undo her bra. Rio lets her take it off herself, groaning when she’s bare. He just barely grazes her skin with his lips as he traces the curve of one breast and then the other before sealing his lips around her nipple and sucking.

Beth gasps. His hand cups her other breast, pinching and rubbing.

“Oh!” she sighs.

He switches sides, but doesn’t stay there for long before he starts to make his way down her chest to the top of her panties. He palms her hips as he glances up at her through his thick eyelashes, his thumbs slowly slipping under the lace. He’s waiting for her to give him permission.

She nods.

Rio kisses each patch of skin that he reveals, pulling away to yank her panties all the way off. His hands gently push her legs apart until he’s staring right at her naked cunt.

Beth swallows.

“I’m gonna eat you out now,” he says.

She shudders, but manages to make a noise that sounds like yes.

It must be close enough because he chuckles as he lowers his head until he’s between her thighs.

He starts off slowly, just a tease. His tongue settling into the crease of her hip and just brushing over where they both want him to be.

“Been thinking about this,” Rio says, repeating the same motion on the other side. “Do you even know what you do to me?”

Beth shakes her head, although after a couple back and forths, she realizes that he can’t see her. “Do you know what you do to me?” she shoots back.

He tilts his head so that she can see him smile. “I think I do,” he replies, setting his middle finger against her and pushing. Beth gasps as it slips in. “I think I get you wet,” he says before pressing a kiss to her clit.

She wants to keep her eyes open, on him, but it’s difficult.

“When’s the last time someone did this for you?”

Beth scowls and knees him as best as she can. “Says the man who interrupted the last time I was going to get laid.”

“That wasn’t my question,” Rio says, tongue moving in counterpoint to his finger.

“After the divorce,” she admits. “Went out, hooked up with a few people.”

“Was it good for you?” His voice is soft as he pulls his finger free then slips it into his mouth.

“Yeah.”

Rio hummed and wrapped his hands around her hips. “That’s good,” he says, then pushes his tongue inside of her. Beth starts to move, but his grip holds her where he wants her.

“Should have known,” she teases, “that you’d be like this.”

He looks up at her, but doesn’t stop what he’s doing.

“Demanding that I do exactly what you want,” Beth goes on. “Gonna hold me in place the whole time?”

He nods slightly, pulls away to lavish attention on her clit for a minute until Beth moans.

Looking down her body, she can see the top of his head and hesitantly, she sets her hand on it. He doesn’t react negatively, so she keeps it there, stroking his soft hair and then scratching against it when he bites her.

“Rio,” she hisses, “your fingers.”

She wants something inside of her, something that she can clamp down on, that will stretch her out.

He obliges, slipping two of them inside of her.

Beth is already on edge. Has been for what feels like months and months and months. She’s had dreams about this, the occasional daydream too, so it doesn’t surprise her that she feels right on edge.

Rio doesn’t say anything, doesn’t beat around the bush or waste time. He’s fixed on giving her pleasure and she can feel it through her entire body, not just where his face and hands come in contact with her.

“I’m -“ Beth tries to say, but he does something that makes the rest of her sentence disappear into an almost wail as she starts to come.

Beth moans, rubbing her hips against Rio’s mouth as much as she can. It feels so _good_. Reminds her of how pitiful the orgasms she’d been giving herself were.

“Rio,” she gasps, fingers curling uselessly against his scalp. Her leg is twitching, trembling as he keeps tonguing her. He’s moving more gently now, seemingly in deference to her sensitivity. Gradually he slows, then pulls his mouth away.

She watches as he licks his lips, then wipes his mouth on the back of his hand and grins at her. Her moan is pitiful.

His smile gets bigger as he rises up until his face is even with hers. He kisses her gently once, then again, this time giving her a taste of herself.

His erection, still trapped in his jeans, is pressed against her belly and when Beth’s fingers go to the zipper, he rears back.

For a second, she worries that she’s done something wrong, but instead, he seems to have decided that he can do this faster on his own. The last of his clothes gone now too, Beth reaches out and trails her fingers along his length.

“Whatever you’re comfortable with,” he reminds her and Beth smiles at him as she circles the base of his cock and starts to stroke. His groan is immensely gratifying.

He feels heavy in her hand, thick. “Like that,” he murmurs.

Soon, he’s kneeling over her, mouth working a hickey into her neck as she jerks him off.

Rio is responsive, although he doesn’t talk much, something that surprises Beth. Instead, he lets out moans and hisses, the occasional grunt as she explores his cock. Touching his sack with her other hand gets her more pre-cum, massaging the head even more.

“I’m gonna -“ he starts to warn her, but Beth just keeps working his cock and when he stiffens, she directs his release onto her skin.

When he starts to come on her belly, Beth feels herself clench around nothing. She’s thinking about him inside of her, spilling his cum and groaning into her shoulder like he is now.

She’s not sure why, but she brings her other hand up to curl around the back of his neck and she starts to gently rub her fingers there. His next noise is almost pained, his mouth opening against her skin and his breath coming out in a rush.

He slumps into Beth a second later, nuzzling into the curve of her neck. He’s going to dry on her stomach if she doesn’t nudge him off, but she doesn’t want to. He’s like a heavy, comforting blanket and as she continues to rub the back of his neck, he groans.

“I’ll give you anything you want,” he mumbles, “as long as you don’t stop doing that.”

Beth laughs and keeps moving her fingers.

They’re quiet for a moment and Beth wonders if anyone ever touches Rio like this - gently, with affection, no expectations. The thought sobers her. Is she touching him with affection? Is she really without expectations?

He must sense some change in her body because he pulls away after kissing her neck.

She starts to get up, but he shakes his head. “I’ll get a cloth.”

Beth watches him walk to the bathroom. The water comes on for a second, then he returns to the bedroom.

It’s hard not to look at his cock as he walks towards her and Rio notices, smirking.

With a scowl, Beth tries to take the towel but he fends her off with a laugh. “I made the mess,” he says, “I gotta clean it up.”

There’s a hint of promise in his voice that Beth refuses to pay attention to. She just settles back onto the bed and lets him wipe her skin.

“You good?” he asks when he finishes.

Beth nods.

Rio leans over to give her a soft kiss.

“Are you?” Beth asks when he straightens.

He smiles. “Yeah, I’m good. You gonna stay here tonight?”

“You want me to?”

“If I didn’t,” he says, setting his hand over the skin he just cleaned, “you wouldn’t be here, Elizabeth.”

He stays close to her as they get ready for bed, watching in interest as she takes off her makeup.

“What?” Beth asks defensively.

Rio just shakes his head.

“What?” She puts her hands on her hips.

“Nothing,” he says, touching her now bare cheek. “You know that I like you without make-up too, right?”

Beth rolls her eyes. “You’ve seen me in the morning after some really bad days,” she comments, “I’m not worried.”

It does the trick and makes him laugh, but he doesn’t leave the bathroom until she kicks him out so that she can pee. There are some things she’s drawing the line at for now.

But when she leaves the washroom, he’s sitting up against the headboard, waiting for her.

It’s nice, falling asleep with someone again. Beth is finding it easier and easier to not think about why she’s even in his bed in the first place and she knows, just knows, that it’s going to be a problem.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to medievalraven and neveroffanon who beta'd this and to everyone reading and leaving comments! Title is a line from Point Break.
> 
> As previously mentioned, it's all written and I'll be posting new chapters once a week. Some chapters will have more specific warnings in the notes, so please keep an eye on them. I’ll be adding to the tags as well. If there's ever anything that you feel I should also be warning or tagging for, please let me know.


	11. Double Cross

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things continue to grow more complicated for Beth.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Warning** : There's some references to torture in this chapter. Jump to the end notes for an explanation.

The day after the party, things change again.

Beth’s finishing up dinner - and when the hell had she basically become a housewife - and trying to figure out whether or not she’s going to have to set some of it aside in case Rio doesn’t actually get home when he said he would when the garage door clicks open. 

Smiling, she stirs the sauce and sets down the spoon so she can pick up the bowl of noodles to take to the table. She happens to turn right as Rio comes up the last of the stairs and she gasps. There’s a bruise on his cheek, a gash on his head.

“Rio,” she says, setting down the bowl and moving to his side.

“Relax,” he replies, “already been taken care of.”

She runs her eyes over him. He must have changed clothing because there’s no way he was wearing that when he got the cut on his head without getting blood on it.

“What happened?” She fusses over him, pulling him to the island and nearly shoving him onto a stool. The cut has been tended, but when he grabs her hands, she sees that his knuckles are split and bruised. She freezes, eyes slowly sliding up to his face.

“Relax,” he repeats. “I’m all good.”

Beth nods, throat dry. “I should see the other guy?” she half-heartedly jokes.

Rio’s lips twitch, but he doesn’t laugh.

“Are you hungry? I made dinner.”

Rio’s thumb lands on her lower lip. “Whatever it is,” he says, “sounds good. Smells amazing.”

She flushes. “You should clean up.”

“Nah. After dinner,” Rio says. “You can help me get my back.”

His hand settles on her ass and pulls her close. “And I can help you,” he promises, moving his face closer to hers until their lips are almost touching. “Bet you’ve got those hard to reach places, huh?”

She can’t hold back her shiver at his tone. “Rio,” she says softly.

He nods. “Say my name like that, yeah? Later,” he clarifies. “When I’m making you feel good.”

Her eyes slip shut as he presses their lips together in a short, but deep kiss. When he pulls away, his eyes are half-lidded in satisfaction.

“Gonna feed me now?” Rio teases.

Beth steps away from him and nods. “Yeah, uh, yeah.”

Beth can’t look at him when he’s being sweet like this and he seems to know it, laughing and serving himself. 

As dinner winds down, Rio slides his chair closer to hers, starts to play with her hand and wrist.

“You don’t wear jewellery,” he comments.

She shakes her head. “Never had any worth wearing often,” she admits.

“Shame,” he says, lifting her arm so he can kiss the inside of her wrist.

“Why?”

His tongue darts out to lick over her vein. “Not that you need it,” he assures her, “but beautiful women should have pretty jewellery.”

Beth pulls her hand away, flustered and attempting in vain to hide it.

Rio leans back in his chair, grinning at her.

“So is that how this normally works with you?” Beth asks, taking a sip of water. “You get a girl living with you and give her expensive stuff?”

He laughs. “No.”

“What’s so funny?”

“You are,” he says, standing up and clearing their plates.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” she demands, standing as well.

“It means,” he says, “that you’re awfully jealous of women you claim not to care about.” He rinses the plates and puts them in the dishwasher before turning back to her. “What do you want me to say? Want me to tell you the names of every woman who I bring into my home, who I’ve let sleep in my bed with me?”

Beth looks away.

“Because here’s the list,” he tells her as he touches her waist, “Elizabeth Marks.”

She turns her head so fast she nearly gets whiplash and stares at him in shock.

“I don’t bring anybody here,” he says. “I go to their place or the place I keep in the city. But nobody, _nobody_ ,” he stresses, “comes here. ‘Cept you.”

“Why?”

“Because this is my sanctuary,” he explains. “The place I get to be just me.”

“No,” Beth shakes her head. “Why me?”

He smiles. “You gotta ask that, I don’t think you’re ready to know. Now c’mon, you wanted me to clean up, and I think I promised to help you out too.”

Beth walks upstairs at Rio’s side and into his bedroom. She undoes her top and drops it onto the floor just inside his doorway. He chuckles and falls behind her, grabbing her bare waist and pulling her back into him.

“That’s my job,” he scolds, hands going to her jeans and shoving them down with her underwear. Next is her bra. “Start the shower?”

She looks over her shoulder at him, a little confused until she sees him pull a gun from his waistband.

“Gotta put this away,” he says.

Beth nods. Part of her knows that she should stay in the bedroom, see where he puts it. Is there a safe? Is it a combo or a fingerprint lock? She doesn’t stay though. She goes into the bathroom and starts the shower.

It doesn’t take more than a minute until Rio’s pressed against her back, his cock caught between them as the shower pours water over them.

Beth reaches up and back so that she can hook her hand around his neck.

“I need you,” he says under his breath. The hand he has on her stomach goes lower. Beth nods, desperate for him to touch her. It feels even better than she imagined when he cups her in his hand, his fingers covering her cunt.

“Inside,” she demands.

Rio doesn’t ask her if she’s sure, just pushes two fingers inside of her, groaning as he does. “You’re soaking fucking wet for me, huh?”

Beth moans, nodding frantically. “Yes,” she says. “Yes.”

“Only for me.”

She keeps nodding.

“Say it,” he demands, the hand not currently finger fucking her grabs her leg and hoists it up and open. For a second, Beth’s worried that she’ll fall, balanced only on one leg, but he just makes shushing noises and keeps going.

“Only for you,” she replies.

“You only get wet for me,” he says. “You only want my fingers in your little pussy, stretching you out for _my_ ,” he grinds into her back as he says it, “cock.”

“Yes,” Beth agrees. “Just you.”

“You gonna come for anyone else?”

She shakes her head frantically. “No, only you.”

“You swear?”

“I swear,” Beth agrees, squeezing the back of his neck.

“Then come for me, sweetheart,” he murmurs. “Get my fingers even wetter. Think you can take another one?”

“Yes,” Beth gasps as he hooks his fingers and rubs against her front wall, close to her g-spot. “Oh god.” Her leg almost gives out.

“Come on,” he coaxes her, never stopping the motion of his fingers.

Beth wails with her orgasm, thrashing in Rio’s grip as he works her through it, murmuring praise and promises in her ear.

“You’re so good for me, Elizabeth,” he says, kissing her neck. “I’m gonna make you come on my cock without even touching you. Bet you’d like that."

Beth turns around to face Rio.

“I’ve got you, ma,” he says softly.

She sets her hand on his chest, then slides it down until it comes in contact with his still erect cock.

“Let me take care of you,” she replies, stroking him.

She watches him pull his lower lip between his teeth as he nods. When she starts to kneel, he curses.

“Elizabeth,” he says, hand on her cheek, “you don’t gotta -“

“I know.”

But she wants to. She’s not even sure the last time that she wanted to do this, if ever. But as she tongues the tip of Rio’s cock, his hand shifting to her hair, she feels like she’s got the whole world in the palm of her hand.

She goes slowly, getting her tongue on every inch of him, occasionally looking up to meet his gaze. His eyes are half closed as he watches her and when she rubs her tongue over the sensitive spot right under the head, they shut as he stops breathing only to let out a harsh exhale when she envelopes the head in her mouth.

Beth pays attention to the tip of his cock, licking the slit and swallowing the pre-cum that he releases. Raising her hands, she sets one on his hip and one on his cock, stroking up towards her mouth. She moans around him.

For a while, the world fades away and it’s just the two of them, this shower, the slight ache in her knees, her jaw as she sucks off a man who she’s pretty sure just killed someone. She should be disgusted by him, by what he’s done, what he’s doing but every time she thinks about Rio, all she wants is _more_.

He murmurs encouragement as she goes. “You’re perfect,” he says, cradling the back of her head when she takes him as deep as she can. “Yes,” he hisses when she mouths at his balls, then groans when she takes his length back between her lips.

“You gonna swallow?”

Beth looks up at him.

“Yeah,” he says, “you are.”

She quirks an eyebrow as if to say “Am I?”

“So long as I’ve known you,” he says, “never know you not to finish a job.” He grins.

She rolls her eyes at that, but keeps sucking him off.

“Come on,” he keeps talking, “swallow for me, sweetheart.”

Beth loves the command in his voice as he says it, even as she can see the gentleness in his eyes, can feel the softness of his touch on her head. If she pulls off, he won’t say anything. But he wants her to swallow. Wants to see her take everything he has to give her.

His hips stutter. “I’m going to -“ he groans.

She takes him as deep as she can as he jerks, cum spilling into her mouth.

“Oh fuck,” he’s saying. “Yeah, just like that.”

Beth makes eye contact with him as she swallows around his twitching cock. She keeps sucking him until he pulls her head back with his hand in her hair.

He stares down at Beth and she’s pretty sure that if he could get hard again this fast, he would.

She runs her tongue over her lips, then takes her lower lip between her teeth.

To her surprise, Rio pulls her up and into him and kisses her. It’s not a gentle kiss or a closed mouth peck. There’s no wrinkled nose or demand that she brush her teeth.

“That,” he says when he finally breaks the kiss, “was the hottest fucking thing I’ve ever seen in my life.” He kisses her again before she can respond.

They wash each other after that. Rio discovers her ticklish spots and Beth finds all kinds of marks on his skin. Some are tattoos, others scars or bruises. He lets her inspect them as she soaps him up, then rinses off. With a kiss to the top of her spine, he turns the water off.

Her moisturizer is in the bedroom, so she leaves Rio to take a seat on the edge of the bed.

He follows a minute later, but his phone rings on his dresser and he stops halfway to her side.

She can see him warring with himself, then fist his hand when he goes to answer it. “Yeah?” he barks into the phone. He listens, then sighs. “Right.”

“What is it?” Beth asks when he hangs up, tossing his phone onto the bed.

He walks the rest of the way to her and cups her face in his hands. “Nothing you have to worry about,” he says.

“I’m worried about you,” Beth tells him. “You’re stiff and -“

He moves his thumb so it’s on her bottom lip. “You don’t have to worry about me, Elizabeth. Even if I couldn’t take care of myself, I don’t go around alone.”

“Then why are your hands all messed up?” Beth asks, lifting one of her hands so that she can touch his knuckles.

“Sometimes I prefer to handle things myself,” he replies. “Doesn’t mean I was alone.”

“Rio,” Beth sighs, looking him right in the eye, “don’t go.”

He smiles, ducking his head to kiss her briefly. “I wish I didn’t have to,” he tells her. “Wish I could stay here with you, get you into my bed.” The hand not on her lip drops to Beth’s bare back. “Want to take my time with you, make you desperate for me.”

“I already am.” Beth shuts her eyes as she says it, shivering at the light brush of his fingers down her spine.

“Nah,” he says, coming a little closer again, “not even close. I gotta go.”

She opens her eyes again. “Okay. But I’m sleeping in your bed.”

“You think I’m going to protest about that?” Rio asks, grinning. “Wear my shirt.”

Beth swallows.

“Just my shirt,” he instructs, kissing her once more before he pulls away to get dressed.

He leaves before Beth can comment about the lack of guard on her. Is he trusting her alone in his house? Or is this a test to see if she snoops around. She has no idea when he’s supposed to get back and there’s only so much snooping that she can in the areas of the house that aren’t wired.

She’s tempted to call him a paranoid bastard, but considering who she is and what she’s supposed to be doing…he has reason for his paranoia. It was the office that she was desperate to get into, but she didn’t dare.

But who _wouldn’t_ snoop? Beth’s pretty sure there isn’t a single person in the world who would be unable to deny the lure of inspecting that walk-in closet and the cabinets in the bathroom. Surely she can look there without raising too much suspicion.

So she goes to the closet and flips on the light. She already knew how little colour Rio had in his wardrobe, but it becomes even more clear when she looks at his clothing all next to each other. Would it kill him to work in something into the blacks and dark greys other than a navy blue?

He’d look good in red, although to be fair, he’d probably look good in anything. She’s almost tempted to call it unfair. She runs her hands over some folded sweaters, then pauses.

There’s a safe in the closet. It isn’t really hidden, but it is tucked in the back behind a row of hanging shirts. She doesn’t recognize the make or type off hand, but it looks fairly large. There’s a digital display and a keypad.

Beth moves on, grabbing one of Rio’s shirts to wear. It’s tight at her chest and long, but not long enough to really cover her up. She could hunt through the drawers looking for something longer, but it seems like a waste of time at this point. And this shirt is comfy, she tells herself. 

She drops onto bed and curls up on her side. With every passing day, she’s getting more and more caught in this web of half truths that she’s building with Rio. That’s the only way that she can think of to describe it.

The night before, he’d taken her to that party, but what was even more jarring had been his words to her once they left. His explanation that they were building a foundation, that he cared about her. All of it made Beth want nothing more than to just fall into his arms and just let him catch her. That’s what he was offering, wasn’t it?

It was so tempting that it made Beth’s head ache just from thinking about it.

Would it be so bad to take it? To say fuck the Bureau, quit her job.

She laughs to herself. Even if she did that, she has no doubt that they’d burn her on purpose, just to make a point. She would join the ranks of those dead undercover agents that she was thinking about less and less with every moment she spent around Rio.

Beth is tired, but it isn’t the kind that can be fixed with sleep. She wants to be able to talk to Annie and Ruby again whenever she feels like it without risking their safety. She wants to do the things that she used to enjoy like baking and game night.

If she asked, would Turner pull her out? Or would he expect her to throw herself onto her sword? The only person from the Bureau that she’d even slightly miss would be Phoebe, but she’s not so sure that it’s a genuine connection. Instead, Phoebe has become Beth’s only tie to her old life, the only thing tethering her to it aside from her memories and the knowledge that her life is packed up in a storage unit somewhere across the city.

Beth has spent most of her life taking care of other people, looking after them. Is it so strange that she would enjoy the idea of someone taking on that responsibility for a while, she wonders.

She can’t stop thinking about it as she gets ready for bed.

Beth slides under the duvet on Rio’s big bed. She gives into sleep, waking briefly when Rio slips in next to her.

“Time is it?” she mumbles.

Rio just wraps his arms around her waist and says, “Go to sleep.”

She does.

—————————

Eddie hasn’t been by the bar for almost two weeks when Beth finally gives in.

“What happened to Eddie?” she asks Rio one morning - well, it’s almost noon, but morning for them - as they make breakfast.

He looks at her. “What d’you mean?”

“He hasn’t been by the bar,” she says with a shrug. “And he used to be around with you all the time and sometimes with the other guys. He okay?”

Rio sets down the knife that he’s using to chop peppers and turns to face Beth fully. “You won’t see him anymore.”

An icy hand takes hold of Beth. “He quit?”

“Had to let him go,” Rio says breezily. “Wasn’t trustworthy.”

“Oh.” Beth turns back to the coffee maker.

He doesn’t say much else, letting her sit with her thoughts. When she goes to work that night, she can’t stop herself from glancing at the table that Rio normally picks whenever he swings by. She’d seen him and Eddie drinking there, laughing and knocking each other’s shoulders. She’d seen Eddie there, picking up girls.

Beth’s pretty sure that Eddie’s dead. She’s pretty sure it’s her fault.

So when she manages to get a burner phone and calls to check-in, she’s quick to ask, “What happened to Eddie?”

Turner makes an angry noise in the back of his throat. “Rio killed him.”

Beth’s hand shakes. “You’re sure?”

“We haven’t been able to identify who it belongs to yet, but a team surveillance team found a tongue tucked under their windshield wiper.”

Beth’s stomach turns. “What?”

“The agent inside the van left for a few minutes,” Turner says, clearly angry. “When he came back, he saw something on the windshield, thought it was a parking ticket. That was yesterday. We’re running DNA, but we don’t get results for a few more days.”

She’s not sure if she hopes this means Eddie’s dead or not. His tongue…

“Why weren’t you doing more to protect him?” she demands.

“We were doing what we’re supposed to,” he says. “Keep your opinions to yourself, Boland.”

She grinds her teeth together. “I got him killed, you realize that, right? I gave you his name and now he’s dead for being a snitch.”

“Then maybe you should have chosen better. You have a meeting with Phoebe tomorrow.” He hangs up, leaving Beth to burn with rage all day.

Maybe you should have chosen better.

Unbelievable.

Eddie should have been safe. They should have taken him out of Rio’s reach the second that he agreed to give them anything. Now the investigation doesn’t have anyone on the inside and there’s a dead body missing a tongue somewhere. She hopes he’s dead, at least. It seems too cruel, otherwise.

Since the night that Rio came back to his house from killing Eddie, he’s taken a bit of a step back from her. Part of it is the hours he’s been working in combination with her own return to the bar. 

Beth leaves late in the day and comes back early in the morning. He comes back late in the day and leaves early in the morning. When she asks him about it, he just tucks her hair behind her ear and kisses her cheek.

“It’s nothing, Elizabeth.”

They haven’t had sex again either, although Beth wakes up to his morning wood pressing against her when he’s still in bed.

She should be grateful of that. Sex blurs the boundaries even in the clearest of times, but with Rio, nothing’s been clear since the moment they met.

“Excuse me,” a voice says, snapping Beth out of her thoughts.

She lifts her head and freezes, convinced for a second that Eddie’s standing there. But then she sees the longer hair, the long lashes, softer face.

A sister.

“Hi,” Beth says with a smile. “What can I get you?”

“I’m not here for a drink,” the girl says. She’s probably younger than Annie.

“Oh?” Beth sets down the glass she has in her hand.

The girl nods. “I’m looking for my brother, Eddie. I know he comes here sometimes.”

Beth swallows, forces herself to nod. “Yeah, I’ve met Eddie. I thought you looked familiar.”

“Everyone says we look a lot a like,” the girl says, holding out her hand. “Thea,” she introduces herself.

“Beth. So what’s going on with your brother?” Beth asks. “You’re looking for him?”

Thea nods, climbing onto a stool. “No one’s seen him in a few days. He wasn’t answering my texts or calls, so I went by his place and I think something’s wrong. He’s always really good about watering his plants or finding someone else to do it if he can’t, but a bunch of them were dried out.” Thea bites her lip. “Have you seen him?”

Beth bites her lip, pretends to think back. “Not for at least a week, maybe two,” she says, shaking her head. “I can ask the other bartenders though.”

“That would be great,” Thea says. She looks tired and Beth gets the feeling that she already knows what happened to Eddie.

“Do you have a phone number or something?” Beth asks. “Then I can let you know what they say.”

“Got a pen?”

Beth grabs a marker and a napkin, sliding it over to Thea and getting her a glass of water.

Your brother is dead because of me, she doesn’t say. Because I needed to cover my ass. Because I couldn’t do my job.

“Hey Thea.” Beth recognizes Rio’s voice before she sees him come out from the back. She hadn’t even known that he was here.

Eddie’s sister stiffens and Beth watches her finish writing her number down before passing it and the marker back to Beth.

“Hi Rio,” Thea says.

Beth watches Rio set his arm on Thea’s shoulder.

“I think we should talk,” he tells her, leading her away from the bar.

She can’t watch the whole conversation, but Rio does most of the talking. At one point, he reaches into his jacket and passes something to Thea. When she leaves, she looks resigned.

“Is she okay?” Beth asks Rio when he walks by the bar.

He nods. “She’ll be fine,” he says, then leaves without saying anything more.

If she had to guess, Rio’d just given Thea cash. Had he told her what happened to Eddie? Or had he spun some kind of story, ensuring that Thea and the rest of Eddie’s family were never really sure what happened other than that he wasn’t ever coming home.

Beth swallows and does her best not to picture Rio handing Annie a similar envelope.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Warning** : When Beth asks Turner where Eddie is, he reveals that Eddie is most likely dead and that a tongue was left on a surveillance van that they haven't id'ed yet. Beth is unsure if this happened when he was alive or not. There are some more references to it throughout the rest of the chapter. And a general heads up, there will be more stuff coming up along these lines as we get closer to the end and things get more violent. I'll do my best to warn for things, but if there's something specific that you're worried about reading, please feel free to ask me to warn for that particular thing. As someone who has some semi-random triggers that tend not to get warned for, I want to be sure that you feel as informed as you need to be.
> 
> Thank you to medievalraven and neveroffanon who beta'd this and to everyone reading and leaving comments! Title is a line from Point Break.
> 
> As previously mentioned, it's all written and I'll be posting new chapters once a week. Some chapters will have more specific warnings in the notes, so please keep an eye on them. I’ll be adding to the tags as well. If there's ever anything that you feel I should also be warning or tagging for, please let me know.


	12. Judas

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In the aftermath of Eddie, Beth finds herself in even deeper.

They’re at a bit of a standstill right now - her and Rio. He knows that she knows he didn’t just fire Eddie. He just doesn’t know how she’s reacting to it. She hasn’t brought it up again, not since the night that Eddie’s sister had come into the bar asking about him.

And fuck, Beth had needed to tell her that she wasn’t sure. She couldn’t say, “I gave your brother’s name to a federal agent, knowing that he could be manipulated, and now he’s dead because the guy I’m practically living with doesn’t allow for traitors.” She’s not sure what Rio told the young woman, but she doesn’t want to ask him.

For his part, Rio lets her be quiet. Their almost routine that they’d fallen into before this had involved joking at breakfast and him coming into the bathroom to watch her shower. He pulls away a little for the rest of the week, gives her space. Says nothing when she goes to sleep in the guest bedroom a couple of nights in a row.

One morning though, Friday, she’s making herself breakfast when Rio comes downstairs. All he’s wearing is a pair of low hanging sweats that are barely clinging to his hips and he comes up behind Beth to wrap his arms around her. His head drops to her shoulder and one of his hands goes up under the hem of her shirt - which is really his shirt - and settles on her belly.

Beth swallows, flips the pancake.

He still doesn’t say anything, but his mouth starts to work on her neck, making Beth gasp as she lets her head fall to the side to give him more room. He spreads his hand out, palm tight against her, so that his pinky finger is just playing with the top of her panties and his thumb stretches up.

She moans when his other hand shoves up her shirt so he can get it on her breast, pinching and squeezing and just cupping her.

“Rio,” she whimpers. He’s hard against her back. “Rio,” she repeats, putting her free hand over the one on her stomach.

“When you gonna come back to bed?” he rumbles into her skin. His nose runs up and down her neck. “I wake up reaching for you.”

“Rio,” Beth curls her fingers around his hand to stop him from dipping into her panties, “the pancakes are gonna burn.”

He actually stops and for a second, there’s complete silence. Then he starts to laugh, his touch turning gentle. Her shirt falls back down when he takes his hand away and he kisses the side of her head.

“You want coffee?” he asks.

Beth turns her head to look at him. He has a soft look on his face, one that Beth hasn’t seen him direct towards anyone else, that makes her swallow and her heart race. She nods.

“Alright.” Rio kisses her, then backs away and starts to make them coffee.

She finishes up the pancakes and sits with Rio at the table, him at the head and her at his left hand. He picks up her legs and pulls them into his lap, holding them in place when she giggles. Biting her lip, she pours syrup on her own stack of pancakes and starts to eat.

“Not gonna say anything?” he asks after he takes a few bites of his own.

Beth finishes chewing her mouthful and takes a sip of coffee. “About what?”

“Any of it.”

She keeps eating. “Would you even tell me the truth?” she wonders, offhand.

“Yes.”

His response surprises her into looking up. She stares at him.

“Ask me,” he suggests, rubbing his hand over her bare calf. “Whatever you want, I’ll tell you.”

And Beth has no idea what to say to that. She’s got a true kingpin sitting next to her, a man responsible for dozens of deaths and probably hundreds of crimes, offering to tell her anything. She could ask him about Eddie. Maybe find out where he’d been buried. Learn what Rio had told Thea when she came to the bar to make her go away. Ask him…anything.

“Do you actually like my pancakes or are you just being polite?”

He blinks. A grin spreads over his face. “I like your pancakes,” he leans towards her to say, “especially when you put blueberries in them.”

Beth looks down at their blueberry-less pancakes. “You were out,” she says.

“I’ll get more.”

He strokes the top of her foot as they eat.

That night, he doesn’t comment when she comes back to his bedroom to sleep, just welcomes her back with open arms and kisses her goodnight.

—————————————

Returning to Rio’s place on Saturday after running to the grocery store, Beth is tired enough that she fumbles her keys and drops them right at the top of the stairs.

“Shit,” she exclaims, putting down the bag of groceries so she can pick them back up and toss them in her purse.

Grabbing the handles of the bag, she’s walking to the kitchen when she hears footsteps on the stairs and looks up to see Noah coming down them.

“What are you doing here?” she demands.

Noah comes the rest of the way down. “Rio asked me to drop something off in his office,” he lies, smiling at her. “And your dry cleaning.” He points to the row of hooks by the door and Beth sees that there are a few dry cleaning bags.

One is the dress she wore to the party.

“Wasn’t sure which room to put them in,” Noah says, watching Beth as she goes back to unpacking groceries.

“And you don’t need to,” Beth replies. “I think you should go.”

Noah nods. “Of course. My job’s done. Have a good night.” He disappears down the stairs and Beth hears the door to the garage open and close, but she still walks over to check that he’s not still standing in the stairs.

He’s gone, but Beth still feels his presence in the kitchen like a sheen of oil.

And how fucked up is it that she feels more disgusted by the idea of an FBI agent in Rio’s home, snooping around her, than she does by Rio himself.

She doesn’t get a chance to talk to Rio until the next day because he’s home late and she only wakes up enough to burrow into his side when he joins her in bed.

When she gets up the next morning, he’s already awake. She eats breakfast alone and then decides to bite the bullet.

Rio is in his office, working on something. But now, he leaves the door open unless he’s on the phone.

Beth still knocks before entering though.

“Morning,” he says as he waves her in with a distracted smile.

Beth takes a seat across from him at the desk. “That guy, Noah, was here yesterday,” she comments.

Rio nods, finishing what he’s typing and then looking up at her.

“I don’t trust him,” she says.

Rio studies her, sitting in the chair at his desk rather than the couch. It feels almost like they’re conducting business.

“No?”

Beth shakes her head.

“Why not?”

She sighs. “Aren’t you the one who said that sometimes you just have to listen to your gut? Do you have to have a reason for a gut feeling?” Beth asks. “Can’t I just not trust him?”

“You can,” he replies, “but I’m not gonna do shit just because of your gut. Tell me what it is about him.”

Beth taps her fingers on the armrests.

“What, Elizabeth?” Rio presses her.

“I caught him coming down the stairs when he was here the other day.”

Rio frowns.

She was right, Noah wasn’t supposed to be upstairs.

“I don’t think he realized that I was here, so when he came downstairs and saw me in the kitchen, he tried to play it off like he’d dropped something off for you, but you never have anyone do that except Demon. You certainly wouldn’t have a new guy like Noah putting things in your room or the office.”

Rio studies Beth. “Why didn’t you tell me last night?”

“I was mostly asleep when you came home,” she mumbles. “I just forgot about it.”

He nods, then turns to his computer, adjusting the screen so that she can see it too.

It takes a few seconds for him to open whatever he’s looking for, but Beth swallows when she realizes that it’s a number of camera feeds from around the house.

He clicks around and the time stamp changes.

Beth tries to identify all of the spaces in the feeds. She recognizes the garage and the downstairs, the stairwell, upstairs hallway, exterior cameras, but there’s a few that seem to be pointing at blank walls that could be anywhere in the house.

She waits as he presses play and watches Noah come up the stairs from the garage. They watch as he looks around the ground floor before going up the stairs.

He’s apparently not completely stupid - he doesn’t try to force the office door. He’s almost at the bedroom, which isn’t locked, when something makes him turn back and go down the stairs.

Beth can see herself in another feed, bending to pick up her keys.

“Come here,” Rio says quietly.

She gets out of the chair and walks around the desk, letting him draw her into his lap.

Rio strokes her hair. “Thank you for telling me,” he says, kissing her shoulder.

She looks at him and as she does, she realizes that he isn’t surprised.

He’d already known about Noah going upstairs. Had it been a test to see if she would tell him about it?

“You working tonight?” he asks.

Beth nods. “Early though. I should be back around midnight.”

Rio smiles. “I can’t really cook for you,” he admits, “but I can order in or pick up something.”

“Sounds good.”

No one’s sister or family members come in during her shift. It’s just more of the usual. Mika’s quiet and doesn’t pry much. Or at all, really. He just expects her to do her part until Court shows up to take over for her.

Beth hadn’t even given any thought to the fact that this is the first time that she’s seeing the other woman since the night that Boomer was here.

“Thank you so much, Beth,” Court says, pulling her into a hug.

Beth pats her back. “Your sister is ok?”

Court lets go of her and nods. “Few broken bones and a concussion, so that’s why I’ve been out. She’s needed a lot of help with my nephew, but she’s on the mend now. Everything been good with you?”

“Yup,” Beth says. There’s no point in telling her what really happened.

She thinks about it on the drive back to Rio’s. He had never really told Beth what he was doing there that night. Or what had happened to Boomer’s body. She hadn’t even pushed him on it.

Turner no doubt expected her to. Probably thought she was.

But here she was, playing house with a gangster.

With a frustrated sigh, she got out of the car and tapped in her code to the house. There was a mouthwatering smell wafting down towards her and Beth moaned as she climbed the stairs.

Rio was nowhere in sight, but there was a pot on the stove and bread in the oven.

“Hey.” She looks up from the pot to see him coming back from the bathroom.

“Who are you and what have you done to Rio?”

He shakes his head. “Laugh it up if you want.” He bends down to kiss her hello. “Called in a favour with a friend.”

“Oh?” Beth lifts the lid and sees a big pot of sauce.

“He’s got a restaurant,” Rio admits with a laugh. “Ready to eat?”

Dinner is delicious and she prods Rio into promising to take her to his friend’s restaurant at some point. He opens a couple of beers and they move to the living room, sprawling out on the couch together, sitting on opposite ends, legs tangled together.

“Got into the business program at UPenn,” Rio admits when she asks if he went to school.

“Why didn’t you go?” Beth asks. “It’s a prestigious program.”

Rio chuckles. “Yeah?” he says with faux-surprise.

She rolls her eyes at him, but nods.

He turns his head to look away from her. “Nah, that life wasn’t for me.”

“Hedge fund manager, money, fancy cars,” Beth teases.

“I got that,” Rio reminds her, gesturing around them. “And the way I did it, I didn’t have to grovel to be let in the door.”

There’s a hint of something in his voice that makes Beth put her hand on his leg. “Tell me,” she says simply.

“That life,” Rio says after a minute, “I would have been good at it. Real fucking good. But at the end of the day, I still would have been me. They might have given me a seat at the table, but it would always have been the very last one. Always conditional.”

She rubs his thigh and leans her head against his shoulder.

“No matter how good I was, the world would still see me the way that it does now. I figured if they saw me as a gang-banging drug dealer, I’d be the best fucking one they’ve ever seen. They wanted me to be a criminal,” he shrugs, “so I am one.”

“It’s dangerous,” Beth says. They’ve avoided talking about what he does, who he is. “This life. You could get hurt, you could die.”

His hand in her hair gently tips her head back so she’s looking at him when he turns his head. “Would you miss me if I did?”

She thinks that he means it to be teasing, but there’s a sincerity to the question that breaks Beth’s heart.

“Yes,” she replies. “I would.”

He leans down and after brushing their noses together, tilts her head to kiss her.

Beth breaks the kiss to put down her drink, then slides a little closer to Rio so that neither of them have to strain their necks. She presses her hand, a little cold from the beer, against the side of his neck and he groans into her lips before pulling Beth onto his lap.

“I’d miss you,” she says when they break apart for a breath.

“I don’t want you to get hurt,” she tells him the next time.

Every time, Rio pulls her back into the kiss, rougher and deeper. Despite that, his hands on her are gentle and it feels like he’s treating her like some precious thing.

When he undoes the button on her shorts and slides them down along with her underwear, Beth keeps kissing him. He runs his fingers back and forth over her cunt as he holds her head in place while they kiss.

“You’re always so fucking wet for me,” he murmurs, pulling his hand away to slide into Beth’s lips. She licks herself off of him as he shoves up her shirt with his other hand. Soon enough, she’s naked and Rio hasn’t lost so much as a sock.

“You too,” she demands, starting on his shirt.

Rio chuckles, but helps her strip him as well. He’s hard, leaking from the tip as he pulls Beth back onto his lip and kisses her again.

She reaches down between them and circles her hand around him, smiling at his exhale.

Beth teases the head of Rio’s cock against her cunt, running it up and down before using it to apply pressure to her clit.

His head is thrown back as he groans.

“Put me in you,” he demands, lifting his head up so he can look at her.

Beth shakes her head, rubs against him.

“Elizabeth,” he says, “put me inside of you.”

She shakes her head again. “Not yet,” she tells him.

“I don’t want your mouth or your hand,” he snaps, fisting a hand in her hair. “I wanna be inside of you, inside that tight fucking cunt.”

Beth moans.

“I’m gonna fuck you bare,” he goes on. “Wanna watch my cum drip out of you.”

She gasps.

“You gonna let me do that?”

Beth nods.

“Then put me inside of you, Elizabeth.”

She’s so close to doing it, just shifting that little fraction so that she can sink down on his uncovered cock. They’re both desperate for it. Thoughts of section chiefs and bosses are nowhere in her mind. She just wants him inside of her, as deep as he can go.

A door slams and both of them freeze.

“Boss!” someone yells.

“Fuck,” Rio curses, lifting Beth off his lap and pulling his pants back up. He’s just grabbing his shirt and Beth’s hastily wrapping herself in a blanket when Demon bursts up the stairs from the garage.

To his credit, he doesn’t even blink at the tableau in front of him or even wait for Rio to say anything to start explaining himself. Although the blood on his arms gives them a hint.

“Dags,” he says. “Had to bring him here.”

Rio’s pulling on his shirt and going to the stairs when he turns around and says to Beth, “Stay here.” They aren’t quiet as they go back downstairs.

Now that she’s aware, Beth looks out the window to where the driveway leads out of the garage but she doesn’t see any cars leave. Frowning, she gets dressed.

He’d told her to stay there on the couch, but even Rio should know by now that Beth rarely does exactly what she’s told. She slips on a pair of shoes and goes down to the garage.

There are loud voices, one of them Rio’s demanding to know when the doctor’s gonna be there, but Beth can’t tell where they’re coming from at first.

It takes her a second to realize that it’s because a portion of the wall has opened up, making a doorway into a large room.

Beth walks towards it. The voices get louder.

There’s blood stains leading towards the door from the haphazardly parked car.

The first thing she sees when she looks into the room is Demon barrelling in her direction. He hesitates when he sees her, then nods and pushes by her.

It’s a basic operating room.

On the table, there’s a familiar man, bleeding heavily as a few others hold him down.

Rio’s by his head, holding it and saying something.

Like he senses her arrival, his eyes come to the doorway and lock on her. He looks furious and Beth almost steps back. But then she steels herself and steps into the room.

“What can I do to help?” she asks, her voice clear.

Rio gives her a look, then says, “Put pressure on this.” He nods to the cloth he’s holding to the guy’s chest. Beth rushes over and does just that.

“Hard,” he says, pushing her hands down. Dags groans.

“Doc’s almost here,” Rio tells him.

Dags chuckles, then groans again. “Guess that’ll teach me, huh.”

Beth doesn’t say anything.

“What happened that set him off?” Rio asks.

Dags shakes his head. “Fucking nothing, man. One second it was business as usual, next he was pulling this shit.” He winces.

“Must not have realized what a stubborn bastard you are,” Rio teases, glancing up and over Beth’s shoulder and frowning.

“Didn’t get your money either. It’s in the trunk,” Demon says. “Shit Dags, you ever consider not being a hard-headed moron?”

“Don’t make me laugh,” Dags groans. “Hey doc.”

Beth looks over her shoulder to see that someone else is with Demon. Two someones actually. They go to the sink and start to wash up. Doctor and a nurse if Beth had to guess.

“You can let go,” the doctor says when she reaches Dags’ side, nodding to Beth. “I need to see.”

Beth steps out of the way.

“Nasty, but not life threatening,” the doctor quickly concludes. She efficiently sets Dags up, knocking him out and shooing everyone away.

“I’ll stay,” Demon tells Rio, glancing at Beth, “you got other stuff.”

“Thanks,” Rio says, clapping Demon on the shoulder. “Come get me if there’s any changes.”

“Will do,” Demon agrees.

Rio nudges her towards the sink and they wash off the blood on their hands in silence.

Beth doesn’t need much prompting to turn away from the operating room. She doesn’t look behind her all the way to the bathroom connected to Rio’s bedroom where she immediately starts to scrub her hands all over again, even though there’s no visible blood on them.

Rio follows her and lets her do this in peace for a minute before he sighs and turns off the water. His hands are gentle as they take the scrub brush away and return with a towel to pat her hands dry. Then, he squeezes some lotion into his palm.

“You did good,” Rio tells Beth, taking her hand and starting to rub it in.

She nods, looks away.

He doesn’t say anything else until it’s all rubbed into her skin.

“C’mere.” His one hand directs her face back to his and he kisses her gently. “We should get some rest. You especially.”

“Me especially?” Beth asks.

“Yeah, you’re not used to that,” Rio says, hands going to the hem of her t-shirt. Beth stiffens. “No, no,” he rushes to explain, “not for that. Just want you to be comfortable when you sleep, okay?”

Beth bites her lip, but nods again. His touch doesn’t turn sexual at any point when he’s undressing her and helping her into what have become her pajamas. It’s intimate though, unbelievably so. She can feel his fingertips on her skin and she leans into his touch. He takes her weight without a problem.

“I’m sorry,” she says once she’s in the too big shirt. He looks at her. “That we got interrupted.”

His expression clears and he steps towards her. “That’s not on you.” He takes her face in his hands and smooths back her hair. “And I mean it, you did good, Elizabeth.”

A sense of pride bubbles up in Beth’s chest and she’s not sure how to take that.

He kisses her forehead and nudges her towards the bathroom. When she comes back out, Rio’s back is to her. He’s completely nude, despite the fact that he’s facing a gigantic window. It doesn’t seem to bother him.

Beth walks over to him softly, although she gets the feeling he hears her. He doesn’t say anything when she sets her hand on his bare hip, just looks over his shoulder.

“Is everything okay?” she asks.

He looks tired, like what they dealt with downstairs has drained him. But he nods.

“Because it’s okay, you know, if it isn’t,” Beth says, rubbing his skin.

That makes him smile, only for a second. “I’ll be better once we get some sleep,” he tells her, turning so that his cock is pressing into her belly. “Get in bed,” he says, kissing her forehead before heading to the bathroom.

Beth gets in bed to wait for him to come back, which he eventually does, but beyond wrapping an arm around her and pulling her into his chest, he makes no attempt to touch her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to medievalraven and neveroffanon who beta'd this and to everyone reading and leaving comments! Title is a line from Point Break.
> 
> As previously mentioned, it's all written and I'll be posting new chapters once a week. Some chapters will have more specific warnings in the notes, so please keep an eye on them. I’ll be adding to the tags as well. If there's ever anything that you feel I should also be warning or tagging for, please let me know.


	13. Covert

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Beth gets a surprise when Rio has a guest.

They settle into a fragile peace once more. Beth manages to meet up with Phoebe, only to realize that she doesn’t have anything that she’s willing to tell the other woman.

She leaves the diner after their meeting with an uneasy feeling in her gut that persists for the whole weekend. She’s off her rhythm at the bar as well, earning her weird looks from Jessa and Court. When she gets the next schedule, she notices that she’s got less shifts.

Jessa won't meet her eyes and doesn’t say much as they close.

“Why?” Beth asks on their way out.

The other woman sighs. “You’ve got trouble, Beth, and you know it. Your mind’s on that. What’s worse is that Rio’s cracked down on shit here.”

Beth frowns. “What shit?”

Jessa shifts from side to side. “Business stuff he used to do here, he doesn’t. If I had to guess, Teri knows it. It cuts into her profits and now she’s caught between a rock and a hard place. You’re bad for business, Beth, but firing you’s probably worse.”

Beth shoves her hands in her pockets. “Because of what Rio might do in retaliation.”

Jessa nods.

“I’ll deal with it,” Beth says, but Jessa’s already shaking her head.

“No, if you bring it up with him, who knows what -“

“Not like that,” Beth cuts her off. “I mean I’ll tell him that the cut hours were my idea, start suggesting that I’m thinking about leaving.”

Jessa relaxes. “You don’t have to do that.”

Beth chuckles. “I’m not gonna force Teri to keep me here. I don’t want to put her in a tough spot. Can you tell her that?”

“Yeah.”

Leaving the bar makes sense, she thinks as she drives to Rio’s. She doesn’t need the middling money laundering operations running through it anymore. Anton Rossi is small fish and Beth’s living with a shark.

——————————————

On Monday, Beth decides that she needs to get out of the house.

She goes to a café, asks for a scrap piece of paper and pen from the young woman behind the counter, and she plans.

The bar will be easy to sell. To the Bureau and to Rio. But then what? She can’t just suddenly become a kept woman, although she’s sure that Rio would allow it.

The Bureau would want her to work with Rio, but Beth knows that the semi-permeable barrier between business and her is what makes Rio trust her. If she steps too far towards business, she becomes business. She loses access to him on a personal level. Maybe she stays in his bed, but he doesn’t talk to her the way that he does now.

She buys a second coffee, but comes no closer to a solution.

There’s a cell phone kiosk in the mall nearby. Beth hasn’t been to it before, but it’s on her radar. She rips the paper into little pieces, dropping some in the café garbage before returning the pen and thanking the barista, then the rest in other cans along the way. Just in case.

Beth purchases the phone in cash and the person selling it to her couldn’t care less about what’s happening. She walks a few blocks to a park and takes a seat on a bench, dials a long familiar number.

“Hello?” Ruby’s voice comes on after a few rings.

“Hi, Ruby.”

“Oh my god,” Ruby seems to exhale the words. “We haven’t heard from you in weeks!”

Beth smiles. “No news is good news, remember?”

“Shut up, I need to yell at you.”

“Ok,” Beth agrees, happy to take a chewing out from her best friend. It lasts for a few minutes, the occasional “Are you even listening to me?” prompting her participation.

“And now you have a deadline.”

“What?” Beth asks.

“Yup,” Ruby says. “You’ve got about six and a half months to wrap up whatever you’re working on, so step to it.”

The length of time gives her an idea as to what Ruby’s saying. “You about to make me an aunt?” she asks. Ruby and Stan had always talked about having at least two kids.

“Bitch, you’re already an aunt twice over,” Ruby points out, “but yes.”

“Oh Ruby, that’s the best news I’ve heard in ages.” She tears up a little. When Ruby had been pregnant with Sara, Beth had been with her pretty much every spare moment that she had. It had bothered Dean to no end that she had “all that time for other people’s kids”, but Beth had loved being there for her best friend.

It had been different from being there for Annie. With Annie, Beth had needed to step into the secondary caregiver role in addition to taking care of Annie. But Ruby had Stan and was fully grown herself, hadn’t needed that degree of support from her.

“When’s the due date?”

They chat about that as the sun starts to sink down.

“You know when you’re coming home?” Ruby asks after a while.

Beth rubs her lips together. “No,” she admits. She hears Ruby’s concern for her, but she can’t listen to it right now. “But I’ve been given a deadline, so I’d better get back to it!”

“Very smooth,” Ruby teases her.

“Like chunky peanut butter,” Beth replies. “Hate you.”

“Hate your face,” comes the familiar response. “Take care of yourself, Bee.”

“You too,” Beth says. “Give Sara a kiss from her Auntie Beth.”

“Will do.”

Beth’s hands are shaking slightly as she dismantles the phone, but she tells herself that it’s the multiple coffees that she’s had.

The drive back to Rio’s house is as uneventful as ever. The lack of other cars for the last few minutes makes her wonder how much of the land around his house that Rio owns. Probably more than she thinks.

The climb up the stairs from the garage to the house is getting familiar, but she’s met with an unusual sight once she reaches the top of them.

Beth stares at the little boy sitting on the couch.

“Hi!” he says, smiling at her. “Are you my daddy’s girlfriend?”

Beth opens her mouth to answer, then remembers that she has no idea how to answer that and shuts it again.

“Marcus!” Rio’s voice calls out and the boy turns his head towards it right as Rio starts to come down the stairs. He freezes when he sees Beth, like he forgot that she practically lives with him right now.

“Elizabeth,” he says, reaching the bottom of the stairs and coming to kiss her on the lips. Apparently she’s at least enough of a girlfriend that he’s willing to let the boy - his _son_ \- see it.

“I can go,” she murmurs, aware that Marcus is watching the two of them over the back of the couch.

Rio shakes his head. “Nah, stay. Our pizza should be here any minute. Go wash up,” he instructs Marcus. “Thought it was Cisco,” he tells Beth quietly, “but since it’s you, I’m gonna run back up to the office. Cisco’ll bring the pizzas in, but he’s not staying.”

“Okay,” Beth says, then he’s kissing the top of her head and going back upstairs.

She turns towards the kitchen to find Marcus peering at her around the counter. Caught, he pulls back.

“Do you need some help washing up?” Beth asks, walking towards him.

He nods.

“I’m Beth,” she introduces herself.

“Hi,” he says, apparently feeling more shy than he had earlier, when she first arrived.

Beth helps Marcus wash his hands carefully, then hands him a tea towel to pat them dry.

“Are you and Daddy having a sleepover?” he asks.

She has no idea what Rio has told his son and is grasping for something to tell him when the beep of the alarm panel alerts them that someone’s just opened the door from the garage.

If Cisco is surprised that Beth takes the pizza, he doesn’t show it, just hands them off and heads back down.

Do he and the others ever feel wasted, running errands like this for Rio? But then she’s turning around to see Marcus waiting by the table, a few plates in his hands and her thoughts turn instead to what this means.

“What would you like to drink?” Beth asks.

“Coke,” Marcus says.

“What are the rules, Marcus?” Rio calls out as he comes downstairs again.

Marcus sighs and turns to Beth. “Milk, please.”

Rio runs his hand over Marcus’ hair, then settles it on Beth’s hip. “I’ll grab it, take a seat.”

He squeezes her hip and then goes to the fridge, getting drinks for all of them.

Marcus watches Beth as they eat. He makes a bit of a mess with the pizza, but Rio just laughs and passes him a paper towel.

“You getting any of that sauce in your mouth?” Rio asks. “What’s got you staring?”

Marcus looks between Beth and Rio. “Is she your girlfriend?”

Rio glances at Beth, unsure. She nods once. She’s okay with Marcus thinking of her in those terms.

“Yeah, pop, she’s my girlfriend.”

Marcus turns to Beth, looking excited. “Do you want to watch Finding Dory with us tonight?”

Beth laughs. “I’d love to.”

As they set up the movie on the big TV that Beth doesn’t think she’s ever seen Rio use on his own, he only ever joins her when she’s already watching something, she sees a different side of Rio. In the face of yet another facet of him, Beth finds herself scrambling to make sense of it, of him.

It had been strange enough to reconcile the idea of him as the violent criminal with him as the caring and thoughtful person he was with the people he cared about. And now that’s amplified a hundred times over.

He’s gentle with his son, even as they mock wrestle over what Marcus calls the best blanket. In the end, the blanket’s more than big enough to cover all three of them. Marcus keeps looking over at her throughout the movie to check that she’s laughing.

“I didn’t know that you have a son,” Beth says when he comes back downstairs from putting Marcus to bed in the room behind a door she’d assumed just led to a closet. Instead, it had revealed a child’s bedroom and left Beth wondering what was behind the rest of them.

“No,” Rio agrees, “you didn’t.”

They just look at one another across the kitchen for a moment as the water for tea boils.

“Did you want me to know?” Beth asks. “To find out, I mean.”

“If I didn’t, I would have told you to stay at your place or not had Marcus here,” he says. It sounds simple like that.

“His mom?”

Rio shrugs. “Me and Rhea didn’t work out. Part of our custody agreement is that he comes to stay sometimes.” He looks away, jaw tense. “Not often,” he admits.

“She knows what you do,” she guesses.

“To an extent.”

The kettle whistles and Beth removes it from the heat, pouring it into the mugs.

“How long is he here for?” She pushes his mug towards him.

“Three days.”

Beth takes her own mug and leans against the counter to watch him. “Do you want me to leave you alone so you can have your time with him?”

He shakes his head. “No. I want you here.” He sets the mug down and takes the last few steps towards her. His hand is hotter than usual when he sets it on her cheek. “I want you to know this part of my life.”

She feels like he’s just run a grater over her insides, tearing her up in a way that doesn’t seem to do anything at first. But then the effects hit - blood welling up, pain sharp, too big to lick clean or hold in her mouth. It’s starting to feel like that every time that she lies to him about who _she_ is.

“Do you want that?”

Beth shuts her eyes at his question. “Yes,” she admits. “I do.”

—————————————————

When Beth wakes up and goes downstairs in the morning, she’s surprised to find that Marcus is already up, but Rio isn’t.

He’s playing quietly with some blocks on the carpet of Rio’s living room and perks up when he sees her.

“Hi.”

“Good morning,” Beth says.

Marcus stands up. “Can you please make me cereal?” he asks politely.

“Cereal?” Beth asks, going to the kitchen. “Is that what you like for breakfast?”

Marcus sighs. “I like waffles,” he admits, “but Daddy is really bad at them.”

Beth smiles. “Well, I’ve got some good news for you then. I make great waffles.”

He brightens and follows Beth into the kitchen, wanting to help. Like the night before, she helps him wash his hands, then lifts him onto one of the high bar stools so that she can stand behind him and show him the steps. She guides him through whisking the dry ingredients together, then making a well for the wet.

“You should teach my dad how to make them,” Marcus says to her as she leads his hand through the motions of mixing the batter.

She giggles into his hair. “Yeah?”

He nods, a look of intense concentration on his face as they fold the batter.

“He’s not the best cook, huh,” Beth comments.

Marcus shakes his head.

Beth takes over the waffle making once she’s got the machine on, but has Marcus help her get table settings ready.

Whether it’s because he’s up or because he hears them, Rio joins them as the first batch finishes cooking.

“Morning!” Marcus calls out, hopping down from his chair to run over and give his dad a hug. Beth has to bite back a smile at the two of them. Rio’s gotten dressed, but he’s just in a pair of loose fitting shorts and a tank top. When he hoists Marcus into his arms and carries him back over, Beth can’t deny that it makes her a little hot.

“Morning,” he greets her, leaning in to kiss her cheek. “Marcus con you into this?”

Beth laughs, shaking her head. “I asked him what he wanted and he said cereal. But that’s not very fun is it?”

Marcus shakes his head.

Rio puts Marcus back down so he can finish setting the table and wraps himself around Beth’s back, letting his head fall into the curve of her neck.

“You’d be a good mom.”

Beth stiffens at Rio’s words and he’s close enough to her that he feels it. He pulls his head from her neck.

“What is it?” he asks.

Beth shakes her head. “Nothing.”

He drops it, but not for long.

“What was that earlier?” he asks when Marcus goes to have his half hour of TV time. “What’d I say?”

“My ex used to say that. You’d be a great mom.” Beth looks away. “But he said it like it was an accusation. He wanted to start having kids right away but I didn’t.”

Rio pulls her into his arms and strokes her hair. “You know I don’t mean it like that, yeah?”

Beth nods against his chest.

“You take care of people,” he says, “even when you act like you don’t wanna be. Hell, you keep trying to make the guys stay for dinner. You worried they’re not eating enough?”

She blushes. “I’m worried that they cook as well as you,” she mutters.

His chest rumbles with laughter. “Demon wanted to be a chef.”

“Really?”

“Really,” Rio says. “He’s a good cook. Keep telling him he could do something with that.”

“Why doesn’t he?”

Rio snorts. “No way he’s gonna secure a loan,” he says. “And he pays everything up front, gonna bring all kinds of attention he can’t have. Besides, he’s Mexican, which means as far as people are concerned, he’s only allowed to make Mexican food.”

Beth strokes Rio’s hand. “I’m gonna have to make him cook for me one night.”

“He’d like that,” Rio tells her.

——————————————————

The visit with Marcus goes well. As a bonus, they also give her another idea of something that she might be able to do with her time once her job at Teri’s falls through.

She’s researching qualifications necessary to work at a daycare when the absurdity of it all hits her. She has a job. A full time salaried position. Beth Marks wouldn’t even be able to pass police checks without setting off alarm bells. There are ways to make sure that it doesn’t, but she’d have to justify herself to Turner.

Beth can only imagine what his reaction would be.

“Anything to report?” Phoebe asks over brunch.

She could tell Phoebe about Marcus, tell her that Rio has a son that she’s pretty sure he would do anything for.

“No,” Beth replies.

“Turner’s getting antsy.” The other agent doesn’t look like she buys what Beth’s telling her either.

Beth sighs and puts down her cutlery. “He can get as antsy as he likes,” she tells Phoebe, “it won’t change things. What does he expect me to do? Wire Rio’s house? There’s security that I don’t even know the full scope of. Take stuff from his office? It’s locked. The only time I’m in there, so is he. Which I assume you know from Noah.”

Phoebe tenses.

“Yeah, I ran into him.” Beth stares Phoebe down. “At a party and then in the house. Why wasn’t I told?”

“Turner said you weren’t to be informed,” she admits. “I didn’t agree.”

Beth shakes her head. “Unbelievable. What’s the plan with him? Make Rio pay attention to his shady ass?”

Phoebe’s eyebrows pull together. “Rio’s paying attention to him?”

The fact that Noah hadn’t realized this tells Beth everything that she needs to know about him.

“Rio pays attention to everyone and everything,” Beth tells her.

“He’s not an omnipotent being,” Phoebe scoffs.

Beth tilts her head. “Then why do we never get a single thing on him?”

“That’s your job.” Phoebe’s eyes are full of suspicion.

“The thing with the Bureau,” Beth says as she pulls out some cash to cover the tip - the Bureau certainly won’t, “is that they’re convinced that no one can be as smart as them.”

She leaves without saying goodbye.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to medievalraven and neveroffanon who beta'd this and to everyone reading and leaving comments! Title is a line from Point Break.
> 
> As previously mentioned, it's all written and I'll be posting new chapters once a week. Some chapters will have more specific warnings in the notes, so please keep an eye on them. I’ll be adding to the tags as well. If there's ever anything that you feel I should also be warning or tagging for, please let me know.


	14. Burned

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Time's running out.

Beth gets out of her car with a sigh, blinking in surprise when the door to the house opens.

“You heading out?” she asks Rio as he approaches her on his way to his car. It’s the middle of the afternoon.

He nods.

“Everything ok?”

Rio smiles as he ducks down to kiss her quickly. “Stop worrying,” he says, “it’ll give you wrinkles.”

Beth makes a face. “And let me guess, then you’ll trade me in for a newer model.”

His grimace is gratifying. “No, but then you’ll do that thing that women do where they stress about having wrinkles even though it’s a natural progression as you age.”

“I suppose that I should be pleased to know that you would still stay with me if I was wrinkly,” she says as he moves to his car.

“Isn’t that the point of this?” he calls out. “Finding someone you wanna get wrinkly with?”

When she laughs, he waggles his eyebrows.

“Will you be out late?” she asks.

He shrugs. “Might be. Have to take care of something. Not sure how long it’ll take. I’ll let you know if I’m not coming home tonight.”

Beth ignores the warm feeling that she gets at that word. Home.

“Alright. Be safe.”

He nods his head once as he gets in, honking once as he leaves.

Beth heads into the house. She’s supposed to be meeting Phoebe soon. Her thoughts are already tied up with what she should even tell the other woman this time as she goes upstairs.

Even before she reaches the top of the stairs, Beth can see that the door to Rio’s office is ajar. Frowning, she walks towards it and peeks in. He doesn’t leave it open.

She steps into the room, unable to help herself. If Rio asks, she’ll tell him she was concerned about the door being open.

A glance tells her that whatever he was off to do now, he’d left in a hurry. She frowns, walking towards the desk.

Her eyes widen as she realizes what’s open on top of it.

The ledger.

Beth can’t help herself. She walks over to the desk without even stopping to think and looks down at it.

Her heart sinks as she stares at lines and lines of nonsensical numbers and letters. She shouldn’t be surprised that it’s encoded. But seeing it is different. She isn’t sure if she should be upset or impressed. Cautiously, she lifts the edge of the page to see if the rest of the ledger is more of the same.

It is.

With a sigh, she turns around and leaves the office, pulling the door shut behind her until it locks, then gets ready to meet Phoebe.

It’s been ten days since Marcus left, disappearing back to his mother, wherever she is.

She’s had plenty of opportunities to tell Phoebe or Turner about him, to give them that possible source of leverage.

But she hasn’t. She’s kept that little piece of Rio to herself.

Beth is almost certain that at this point, she’s hiding more from the Bureau than she’s sharing. And despite what Phoebe had been saying, she’s becoming less and less likely to give them anything more.

She doesn’t want them to catch Rio, doesn’t want them to lock him up. The thought of Marcus having to see his father through bars for the rest of his life makes her stomach drop. That’s if Rio survives. He’s made enough enemies for himself over the years that survival isn’t guaranteed.

The thoughts keep cycling in her head as she steps into the diner and beelines straight for the other agent.

“You good?” Phoebe asks.

Beth shrugs.

That prompts a sigh. “Anything to report?”

“No,” Beth replies.

Phoebe frowns and leans forward. “Beth, there’s talk of pulling you out.”

She isn’t surprised. What use is an undercover who isn’t doing what she’s supposed to. She just snorts and asks a passing server for a coffee.

“So that’s how they’re playing it, huh,” she muses.

“Turner’s kicking up a fuss, saying that you’re a danger to the investigation.” Phoebe sips her own coffee, then stares out the window. “I’m not inclined to argue with him on this.”

“No?”

Phoebe meets her eyes for a brief second. “I think some distance from this case would do you some good,” she says, almost tactfully.

“Phoebe,” Beth leans forward, “you and I both know that I’m the closest anyone’s ever going to get to him. You really want them to pull me off this?”

“I think you might be getting a little too caught up in -“

Beth’s coffee gets deposited on the table and they pause their conversation for a second.

“Is that how Turner’s spinning this?” Beth asks once the server is gone again. “That I’ve been converted by Rio’s dick?”

The other woman’s mouth thins. Meaning yes.

Beth laughs and picks up the mug, doesn’t bother telling her that the two of them haven’t slept together yet. Well, kind of.

“Beth,” Phoebe says quietly, leaning towards her, “whatever your game is, figure it out. Turner’s gunning for you and you know it. Doesn’t matter what I say and honestly, I’m not sure that he’s wrong to want you out of there. You need to take care of yourself.”

She nods in response. “I appreciate that, Phoebe. I really do.” Beth sighs. “But I think that Turner’s the last person in this world that I’d trust.”

Phoebe bites her lip. “What if I had someone else oversee you coming out of undercover?”

Beth shrugs a shoulder. “He’ll work his way in somehow, he always does when it comes to Rio.”

It doesn’t make sense to stick around for long, just going over the same few things over and over, so Beth slides out of the booth with a muttered goodbye.

Something makes Beth take out her phone as she walks back to her car. She pulls up Rio’s number and hits call.

It rings twice, then goes to voicemail. 

She frowns. 

“I wasn’t calling about anything specific,” she says as she unlocks her door. No use in worrying him. “I’ll see you later.”

She takes the long way back to Rio’s, driving past all the McMansions that Annie likes to make fun of.

After a while, her head feels calm enough that she points the car back towards his place. The sun’s almost completely sunken from sight as she pulls into the garage.

When she comes up the stairs, she can see Rio on a stool and lounging against the kitchen island, spinning his phone.

“Where you been?” Rio asks when she reaches the top of the stairs.

She frowns, taking off her shoes. “Out.”

Rio laughs as Beth walks towards the kitchen to get herself a glass of water. “That’s all I get?”

“I didn’t realize that I needed to account for all my comings and goings to you,” Beth tells him.

“Today you do,” he says in a tone that makes Beth’s frustration after her conversation with Phoebe boil over.

“Oh screw you, Rio,” she snaps, draining half of the glass in one go before putting it down on the countertop.

“Oh baby,” Rio says softly, “you been planning to screw me in all kinds of ways.”

Beth inhales. “What are you talking -“

“Quiet,” he snaps. There’s anger in his voice, anger that Beth has heard before, but never directed towards her. “You’re going to try and play this game, huh.”

He stands up, unfolding in such a way that Beth doesn’t think she’s ever seen him do before. It’s like with every muscle that shifts, he gets bigger. Not just in height, but his shoulders seem to grow broader, his emotions - anger, frustration - spread out.

“What game?” Beth asks, tucking her hair behind her hair. She’s beginning to feel uneasy.

“I don’t know,” Rio leans down.

Beth just looks across the island at him, waiting for him to explain himself. He’ll do it when he’s ready and Beth doesn’t think that she wants to push this because the sense of unease is growing, spreading through her limbs.

Her heart starts to beat a little faster, her vision sharpens, and her muscles tense before she can think.

She doesn’t know what he’s going to say.

His voice is deceptively soft when he speaks, tearing down everything that she’s been working so hard to build.

“Why don’t you tell me, Special Agent Elizabeth Irene Boland.”

It’s the full name that lets Beth know that this isn’t a shot in the dark.

Rio _knows_.

Beth is batting the glass across the island towards him as soon as the last syllable slips from his lips. He jumps out of the way of the glass before it smashes to the ground. It doesn’t even phase him.

Her odds of getting to the garage door are slim. The odds of getting her code typed in before Rio’s on her are practically non-existent. Then there’s still the garage and gate to contend with. She needs to incapacitate him if she wants to get out of this.

He must be expecting her to bolt because his eyes widen slightly when she moves towards him and he doesn’t get a chance to block her first move.

She hits him in the stomach and tries to slide away, but he’s grabbing her from behind, pinning down her arms. He knows how to fight, how to protect himself against defensive tactics.

Still, Beth struggles. She doesn’t want to die here. Not now. She can’t.

She kicks out, catching his shin as he snarls in her ear.

Going limp for a second, she nearly frees herself from his hold as he stumbles in response to her sudden dead weight, but she’s miscalculated and the step into the living room is right there, sending her off balance.

It gives him a chance to adjust his grip on her.

Rio stumbles to the right and before Beth realizes what he’s doing, he’s shoving her down on her back onto the couch and dropping down on top of her, trapping her completely.

Beth starts to panic.

“Not going to deny it?” Rio asks, mouth right against her ear. “I didn’t even have a chance to ask you how Jimmy Turner’s doing and you’re already making a run for it.”

“Why bother?” Beth says. “You’re just going to kill me, aren’t you? What’s the use in trying to tell you different?”

He’s quiet for a moment. “Nah, I’m not gonna kill you. Not yet anyways. Think I’ve got some uses for you.”

She’s not going to cry, not for him. She’s not going to plead for her life or try to talk him out of whatever he’s got planned.

“Here I was,” he says, voice turning soft, “thinking how fucking lucky I was to have found you.”

Beth takes a shaky breath.

“You’re smart and you’re fucking ruthless, darling,” he says. “D’you know how much I wanted that? Wanted you. Fuck,” he mutters, “and your body. Been thinking about it for months. Since the first night I saw you in the bar. Started with just wanting to fuck you but now I want to do everything to you.”

“Only then,” his tone changes and his head comes up so that he’s looking down at her, “I find out you’re nothing but a fucking liar. I let you into my home and you were gonna what, lock me up, Elizabeth? Bet that’d make your career, huh. It’d be big enough that people would mostly look past the fact that you got here because of your pussy.”

Beth hisses at him and tries to knee him, but he blocks her. In the struggle, she winds up face down, her hands trapped behind her back, between her and Rio.

“Yeah. You got the opportunity to turn me in because I wanted to fuck you. Wouldn’t that have been fun to describe in the court," he drawls. "I’d be happy to give all kinds of details. Like how good you are at sucking cock. How you swallow like a champ. How you clamp down so tight on my fingers when you come that I -“

Beth uses a slight shift in his position to throw her head back into his nose.

“Fuck!” Rio shouts, but he doesn’t let go of her. “Do you want me to tie you down? Because I will.”

Beth snarls.

“The only reason that I don’t already have someone working on you is because you didn’t tell Turner.”

Beth’s brain zeroes in on that. “What?”

“You didn’t tell him about Marcus.” She can feel drops of warm blood landing on her back and she winces. His nose is probably bleeding.

She swallows, slumps into the couch.

“Why didn’t you? He would have found out when you made the arrest, right?”

Biting her lip, Beth ponders her answer. “Because I didn’t want him to know.”

Rio sighs. “I’m going to let go of you, but don’t try to run. Demon’s outside and if you go out there, he’ll kill you.”

He gets off her and Beth slowly sits up, watching him as he fetches something to press to his nose.

“Is it broken?” Beth asks.

He shakes his head. “Don’t think so.”

“How’d you know?” Beth wonders.

Rio laughs. “Noah didn’t hold out long. Then I remembered what you’d said once, about your ex. Sells cars. I thought I’d seen him before, on TV. I was right. Didn’t take long to track down a Dean Boland, who was married to an Elizabeth. Funny thing is, Elizabeth Boland is an employee of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.”

She swallows. “Is Noah dead?”

“Not yet, sweetheart,” Rio tells her, wiping at the drying blood on his chin. “Probably wishes that he was.”

“Dean?” she makes herself ask.

“Didn’t even go near him,” Rio says.

“Eddie?”

His eyes narrow. “That one on you somehow?”

There’s no point in lying. She nods.

“Didn’t think Turner would be so fucking obvious,” she admits. “He wasn’t supposed to die.”

“I wasn’t supposed to kill him, you mean,” Rio says with a slight sneer. “I can’t tell if you’re stupid or just naive.”

“Can’t be that stupid if you moved me into your fucking house just because you wanted to fuck me,” she snaps.

His reaction isn’t what she expects. He laughs. “And where did that get you, Elizabeth? You find a smoking gun, something to hand over to the feds? Nah, I don’t think you did.”

She just glares at him.

“What now?” Beth asks. “You kill me and put my body with the rest of the ones that no one’s ever found?”

He snorts. “You think I got a mass graveyard out there somewhere?” He shakes his head. “That’d be stupid,” he says. “As for your question, we got a choice to make.”

Beth waits for him to elaborate.

“The first one is obvious - I kill you.”

She can’t hide her shiver at that.

“But I think that there might be another option for you, Elizabeth.”

“And what’s that?” She crosses her arms over her chest.

“See, I can’t figure it out, because you’ve been here for months and you haven’t given your bosses shit beyond Eddie. Why’s that?”

“Maybe I wanted to hog the glory,” she suggests.

Rio shakes his head. “Nah. Doesn’t work like that.”

Beth doesn’t have an explanation, so she just shrugs. He steps a little closer, puts his hand on her face.

“So here’s the other option,” Rio says softly, his thumb brushing back and forth over her lips. “You show me where your loyalties lie.”

Beth swallows. She’s not even sure where her loyalties lie right now.

“We go downstairs,” he goes on, “and we go for a drive. At the end of that drive, there’s gonna be a room where your boy’s waiting for us.” She inhales. “You’re gonna be the one to pull the trigger.”

“Murder to prove my loyalty?” Beth scoffs.

His hand curls around the back of her neck. “You think I want to kill you? Make an example of you? I don’t, but I will, because that’s the only reason that I’ve survived as long as I have. And I have no intention of this being where I slip.”

Beth shuts her eyes. “Would you be the one to kill me?”

He doesn’t say anything for a second. “Yeah. Only way to do it, to make sure -“ he trails off, but she gets the impression that he isn’t finished with what he wants to say. “To make sure that I put my doubt in the ground with you.”

She blinks her eyes open and looks at him. His face is open. She can see his hurt.

“I coulda loved you,” Rio says. “Maybe I already do. That doesn’t save you though.”

Beth nods.

She knows what she’s going to do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to medievalraven and neveroffanon who beta'd this and to everyone reading and leaving comments! Title is a line from Point Break.
> 
> As previously mentioned, it's all written and I'll be posting new chapters once a week. Some chapters will have more specific warnings in the notes, so please keep an eye on them. I’ll be adding to the tags as well. If there's ever anything that you feel I should also be warning or tagging for, please let me know.


	15. Key

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Beth makes a choice, knowing that there's no turning back.

The drive to wherever Rio’s stashed Noah is done in silence. If she had to guess, Beth would say that Rio isn’t sure that she’ll go through with it.

To be fair, she isn’t either. Because it’s not just taking care of Noah. It’s what comes after that worries her. If she does this, she can’t go back to the Bureau.

She just can’t.

So she has two options, neither of which she’s sure of. The first - she sticks to the beliefs that she’s held for so many years, no matter how shaky that belief has gotten. She stands by them. The second - she leaves them behind and joins Rio.

That’s what this has all come down to, hasn’t it? Every night as she’s struggled to come to terms with her work, what it is that she’s doing, has been leading towards this moment. Beth had just hoped that it would be something that she could decide without a gun being involved.

When they arrive at a warehouse, Rio doesn’t say anything, just gets out of the car and starts walking to the door already opening for him. Beth has to race to catch up, not confident that it’ll stay open for her.

There’s three people inside. Two of them are Rio’s. The third is Noah.

He’s sitting on a chair, hands and feet bound. He’s clearly been hit. Something she expected, considering what Rio had said. He’s also surrounded by clear plastic. Beth assumes that’s a step that’s been taken for easier cleanup.

“So what’s it gonna be?” Rio asks, speaking to her again for the first time in what feels like hours.

Beth swallows. He’s accepted a gun from one of his guys while she was taking it all in.

Noah lifts his head.

“Boland,” he gasps.

“Did it take much to give me up?” Beth asks.

He doesn’t answer.

“Did Turner give you permission?” She takes a step towards him. “Did I get in the way of his case?”

Rio, standing between her and the other agent, extends the gun to her, barrel in his hand. At some point, he’s slipped on a pair of black gloves. He meets her eyes squarely.

“Boland, you gotta call back-up,” Noah tries.

She could. She could shoot Rio and his guys, incapacitate them at the least and summon back-up. She could probably get a commendation or something out of it. The Bureau would take her back. If they were really pissed, they could bury her under piles of paperwork somewhere.

Beth stares into Rio’s eyes. He knows that she could shoot him just as easily as she could kill Noah, but he’s still extending the gun to her. Is it a trick? If it’s in her hand, will she notice the missing weight of a clip?

“It’s up to you, Elizabeth,” he says softly.

She takes what he’s offering.

The gun isn’t empty, she can feel it. Turning, she raises it, adjusting her body into proper form.

“You fucking bitch,” Noah shouts.

Beth is an excellent marksman. She spent long enough at the range to be sure of it. It’s easy to pull the trigger on the gun that Rio had passed to her.

One second, Noah’s swearing, pulling at the ropes and the next, he isn’t anymore.

She has to take a deep breath to stop herself from throwing up.

Rio steps up behind her and puts his hand over hers on the gun.

“You did good,” he says, kissing her temple. He takes the gun from her carefully and passes it to one of his guys. He peels off the gloves and those go into a bag that the guy passes to him, although this he takes back.

Did she? Beth is shaking all the way back to Rio’s car.

“What are you going to do with the body?” she asks.

He looks at her, not starting the car yet. He sets the bag containing his gloves down between them. “Same thing we did with the others.”

Beth nods. “Okay.”

“I’ll take you home,” Rio tells her, reaching over to touch her cheek. She leans into his touch, knowing that he means his home. She nods again.

The living room is still in disarray from their fight earlier. And had that really just been - she looks to the clock - a couple of hours ago? She starts to walk over to the couch, meaning to right the cushions, but Rio’s hand grabs her arm.

“You gotta clean up,” he says. “Gunshot residue.”

Right. She knows that.

“We’ll get rid of the clothes,” he goes on, sliding his hand down until it reaches hers. He doesn’t join their hands, just waits for her to react.

She curls her fingers in his and he smiles.

Without him saying anything, Beth knows that she has to be the one to bridge the gap between them. He’ll let her go if it’s what she wants. But she doesn’t want him to.

She steps towards him and reaches up to wrap her left hand around his neck so she can pull him into a kiss. It doesn’t take much, just the slightest of pressure and then his lips are on hers. It’s a soft kiss and neither of them seek to deepen it. It wouldn’t be right in this moment. That isn’t what it’s about.

Parting again, Beth moves to the stairs, hand still in his.

He follows her into the en suite in his bedroom.

They both strip, but it doesn’t feel sexual. At one point, Rio pulls a plastic bag from the cupboard and starts to put their clothing in it, sealing it at the end.

“At this rate, I’m not going to have any clothes left in a few months,” she comments.

Rio laughs. “I’ll get you more,” he assures her, stepping into the shower and activating the water. It’s a little too cold at first, but when she frowns, he turns it warmer.

He helps her scrub her nails and her hands, washes her back more gently. Even though he didn’t pull any triggers tonight - as far as she knows - he has her do the same for him.

Beth’s sleep is easier than it has been in a while.

It should disgust her.

It doesn’t.

————————————————

Two days later, Beth wakes up to a message from Phoebe. _Hey, I’m gonna be heading out of town for a few weeks! One last brunch before I’m gone?_

When Beth replies in the affirmative, Phoebe replies with a time. She has a few hours and Beth spends it making plans.

After the night that Beth shot Noah, Rio had pulled away. 

He wasn’t around much and when he was, he barely spoke to her. When he did, it was demands or questions about the Bureau’s knowledge of him. He’d closed his bedroom door as well, making it clear that she wasn’t welcome.

Despite that, Beth knows that she’s made her bed. She just has to figure out how to lie in it. So she makes plans.

Most of them go up in smoke when Beth walks into the diner and sees Turner at the table with Phoebe.

Beth strides over and takes a seat. “What the hell?” she hisses. “What if I was followed?”

“Then you’re an even shittier agent than I thought,” Turner responds. “Where’s Noah?”

She’d expected this line of questioning, but her head jerks back slightly. “How the fuck am I supposed to know? I thought I wasn’t even supposed to know that there was another agent there.”

He glares at her.

“If you wanted me to keep an eye on him, you should have told me,” she tells him.

“So you’re telling me you have no idea where he is?” Turner asks.

“No,” Beth responds, firm as she can, “I do not. Because he’s not my business, Agent Turner. Is there anything else to discuss or are you just here to make snide comments about my abilities?”

“You’re going to let a team into the house,” Turner says.

“No.” Beth is already shaking her head. “His security is too good.”

Turner shrugs. “Then sort it out. You’ve got a week to make contact with Phoebe and give her a window for it to happen.” With that, he gets up and leaves.

Beth stares at Phoebe, who fidgets under her attention.

“Couldn’t have given me a heads up?” Beth asks.

Phoebe stills and raises her head. “And said what? Our boss is here, hope you’ve been doing your job?”

“What the fuck was that about Noah?”

The other agent bites her lip. “He was supposed to check in yesterday morning, but he didn’t. His phone and his car are at his apartment. No one’s heard anything about him.”

Beth props her elbows on the table and rubs her temples. “He was being fucking reckless,” she mutters. “Walking around Rio’s house? I told you that there’s security.”

“He was supposed to be there,” Phoebe starts to say.

Beth’s laughter drowns her out. “He brought some dry cleaning over and when I got home, he was coming down the stairs. If I thought that was weird, you can be sure that Rio knew about it and thought it was incredibly suspicious.”

“Home?”

Beth blinks. “What?”

“You called it home,” Phoebe tells her.

Beth drops her hands. “What else am I supposed to call it, huh? It’s what he calls it, what I call it when I’m talking to him.”

Phoebe studies her. “You sure you aren’t getting too close to this?”

“I thought that the whole point of this was to get too close,” Beth mutters. “But I guess the Bureau likes to pretend that it’s clean and simple - moving in and out of that. It isn’t.”

“I recommended to Turner that we pull you out,” Phoebe says.

“What? When?”

“People aren’t supposed to be under like this. It’s gonna fuck with you, no matter how much we try to stop that from happening. He said you’re not coming out until Rio goes down. When I asked what was gonna happen when you got put into serious jeopardy and he said that he didn’t really care. Said that if Rio took care of you, at least it’d be another felony charge.”

Beth slumps. “So what am I supposed to be doing, huh? Pulling miracles out of my ass just so that he can look good in front of a hiring committee?”

Phoebe looks uncomfortable.

“It’s bullshit,” Beth mutters, getting up and leaving without looking back.

When she gets back to the house, Rio's car is in the garage.

“I had a meet with my handler. Turner was there,” Beth admits to Rio when she sees him in the living room and he makes no sign that he's heard her come in even though she knows that he has.

He looks at her. “And?”

“He was asking about Noah.”

She hangs up her jacket, feeling like his eyes are glued to her the whole time. She makes a point to not make eye contact with him as she walks by the living room. Half expecting him to get up off the couch to follow her, she pours herself some water.

But he’s still sitting on the couch, seems to be…just reading.

“You aren’t worried?”

He still doesn’t shut his book, just looks over his shoulder towards her and laughs. Which, considering the Bureau’s inability to figure out his operation, isn’t entirely unfounded.

“Should _I_ be?” Beth asks as she walks to the living room and waits for his response.

He shrugs.

“That’s it?” Beth demands. “Are you even going to say anything to me?”

Rio closes the book, sets it aside, and spreads his arms out over the back of the couch. “How do I know you’re not wearing a wire?” he demands.

“I’m not,” Beth snaps.

He laughs. “Oh, you expect me to take you at your word, sweetheart? Nah, that ship has fucking sailed.”

Furious, Beth does the only thing that she can think of and starts unbuttoning her shirt. “Fine,” she hisses, “I’ll fucking prove it.”

He just watches.

Beth tosses her shirt at him - let him look it over for hidden microphones if he’s so paranoid. He just puts it over the arm of the couch.

Next to go is her pants, which she throws at him too.

She sees a twitch next to his eye as she pushes down her panties and then unhooks her bra.

One at a time, she lifts her breasts so that he’ll see that there’s nothing caught there either and he laughs.

“Do I need to bend over and cough?” she snaps.

“Come here.”

She steps closer to him, close enough that he can reach out to touch. His hands settle on her hips, moving slowly.

“C’mere,” he says, tilting his head back to meet her eye.

“I am here.”

He smiles, shakes his head. Beth lets his hands lead her down onto his lap.

“You’re my girl, aren’t you, Elizabeth?” he asks, his voice raspier than she thinks she’s ever heard it as he takes her hand and leads it to his lips.

She shivers, it’s chilly in the open space of the house, but Rio feels warm against her.

“You are,” he says. “It’s what got us into this mess.”

His other hand goes to her back.

Beth sighs. “We’re always on uneven ground,” she tells him.

“Yeah?” He keeps brushing her hand against his lips.

“Look at us,” Beth says. “I’m naked in your lap to prove that I don’t have a wire on.”

His head falls back against the couch. “See, between the two of us, only one of us has to prove that.”

“Am I going to be proving myself to you again and again?” she wonders. “Because if I wanted to be treated like shit, I’d just go to the Bureau and have them pull me out. I’d go home and I’d work a job, see my friends, my sister.”

“You miss ‘em?”

She nods.

“Go see them.”

“No.”

Rio smiles. “No?”

“No,” Beth repeats. “If I do that, Turner’ll know that something’s up and I’ll get pulled in.”

“Ah,” he drawls, “and then you’ll have to explain why your friend Noah’s dead.”

“Is there a body?” Beth asks.

“Maybe.”

She glares at him. “It’d be great if I knew what’s out there that has the potential to bite me in the ass,” she snaps. “I don’t exactly have plenty of reasons to trust you either.”

“No?” His hand presses her a little closer, hand sliding down until he’s palming her ass. “That’s a fucking shame, Elizabeth, because you and me…”

“The way it is right now,” Beth says when he doesn’t finish his thought, “there is no you and me.”

“I don’t buy that.”

“It’s not for sale,” Beth replies.

Before she can blink, she’s on her back underneath him, staring up at him hovering over her. “You know why I don’t buy it? Because of how you react when you’re in my arms, when I’ve got my hands and my fingers and my lips on you. And don’t,” he says as she opens her mouth, “try to tell me that it’s only sex. We both know it’s more than that.”

“Oh is it?” Beth asks, even as she feels herself getting wetter after how he’s just handled her.

Rio nods.

“If it was just sex,” he says, his hand coming to her chin, “we would have fucked and been done with it ages ago.”

Beth lets herself go soft beneath him. “Maybe I was just doing what I was told,” she murmurs. “Walking the line between seducing you and letting you fuck me so you’d let me in.”

“Maybe,” he allows. “But I’ve got it on pretty good authority that you haven’t given your bosses shit.”

He doesn’t give her time to reply to that before kissing her. It’s immediately a deep kiss, heady. It drains all the air in her body and replaces it with a singular need. And when the hell had that happened - that level of connection?

The only saving grace is that Rio seems just as lost as he devours her, pressing his erection against her as they kiss. It’s a tease through the fabric of his pants, but for a moment he thrusts against her like he would be doing if he were naked.

Beth wants him.

She moves her hand to his belt buckle, but he grabs her wrist and pulls away. Kissing her palm, he puts her hand onto the couch and starts to move down her body.

After the tension he’s been building, she expects him to just jump right in, but it just goes to show Beth that she doesn’t know as much as she thinks she does because he sucks kisses into the insides of her thighs first.

She squirms a little, hoping that he’ll take the hint.

He certainly understands the hint, chuckling at her desperation, but he doesn’t do anything about it other than lick the crease of her thigh where it meets her pelvis, nipping upwards when he reaches her hip before moving to the other side to make his way back down.

“Rio,” Beth says quietly, “don’t tease.”

“Don’t tease?” Rio laughs, setting his middle finger right over her cunt, not even really pressing against her. “Sweetheart, you’ve been teasing me for a whole lot longer than I been teasing you.” His voice is low, rough.

“Says the guy who made eye contact with me while fucking another woman,” Beth responds.

That just makes him laugh harder and Beth’s about to push him away from her when he shoves his finger all the way in, startling a gasp from her.

“Fuck,” he groans. “You’re always so fucking wet for me, you know that? What does it for you? Is it how I look, how I touch you?”

Beth moans.

“‘Cuz I think it’s way more than that,” he goes on. “I think you like what I am, who I am. I think it gets you hot, getting fucked by a criminal. Does it, baby?”

She shakes her head.

“No?” Rio’s expression somewhat resembles a pout, but it’s spoiled by his grin. “What did I tell you about lying to me, Elizabeth?”

The same time that he pushes a second finger in, he lowers his head and licks a broad line over her clit before sealing his lips over it. He alternates between sucking and licking in time with the movements of his fingers.

She forces herself to lift her head and look down at him and finds herself meeting his eyes because of course he’s staring at her. He does something with his fingers that melts her body and her head falls back onto the couch as she moans out his name.

Beth is so close to coming that when Rio pulls his lips away, she actually thinks she cries.

“Rio,” she begs. She doesn’t care how he finishes her, she just needs to come.

But Rio stands up. “No,” he says. “You can come when you stop lying.”

She shudders, trying to wriggle her hips in search of friction. She isn’t expecting it when Rio slaps her cunt.

“What did I just say?”

“Please,” she lets out, looking up at him.

“Elizabeth,” his voice is hard, “what did I just say?”

She swallows. “I can come when I stop lying.”

“Good girl,” he says.

“I’m not!” Beth protests. “You know everything now.”

Rio picks up her clothing and brings it over to her. “I’m not the only one you’re lying to.”

Beth doesn’t understand. What does he care about anyone else? Feeling a little self conscious, she starts to dress again.

“See, we got your friends, the ones you’re dying to see, but won’t let yourself go to,” he ticks off a finger. “We got everybody at the bar. The Federal Bureau of Investigation. Last, but not least, you.”

She scoffs. “I’m lying to myself?” She tugs on her shirt.

“Yeah, you are,” Rio says, not sounding like he’s teasing. “You’re still telling yourself that you’re going back to that place, aren’t you? Still acting like you want me _despite_ of what I am, not because. You gotta sort your head out, Elizabeth, you want to do this with me.”

He leaves the living room, heading upstairs and leaving Beth to gather herself.

More for something to do rather than any real desire, she goes to the kitchen to make tea.

Her mind wanders as she fills the kettle, trying to find something to focus on other than what Rio just said to her. Despite what he thinks, Beth hasn’t been telling herself that she’s going back. She just hasn’t figured out the best way to leave. It wasn’t like she had been doing stellar work of late, so it was unlikely that any higher ups would be sad to see her go.

She turns off the tap.

Good authority. He’d said that he had it on good authority that she hadn’t given her bosses anything useful on him. So he did have people in the Bureau. But who? Did she know them?

Did Rio expect her to fill a similar role? Beth didn’t think that she could. It was one thing to be undercover, another thing entirely to be a mole in the FBI. Besides, it would be evident almost immediately that she was continuing on something with Rio.

Barely stopping herself from biting her thumbnail, Beth sighs, preparing two mugs. She might as well take some to Rio as well. Maybe now is a good time to address this particular elephant.

She isn’t surprised to find him in his office, door wide open. Beth supposes that there’s no use in hiding things from each other now, is there.

She is, however, surprised when he comes out from behind the desk and joins her in the chairs by the window.

“Thanks,” he says, accepting the mug.

Beth doesn’t say anything at first and he seems content to wait her out.

“I’ve been considering leaving the Bureau for a while,” she admits. “The reasons that I got into it, they’re not there anymore and I just - I don’t believe in the work.”

Rio nods.

“I probably would have left after this case. But now this complicates things,” Beth says. “If I quit, they’re still going to keep you under surveillance and sooner or later, they’ll know that I’m still hanging around you. They’ll make some guesses about what happened. Might try to discipline me.”

“You don’t need to worry about that.”

“Yes, Rio, I do.” Beth has to keep her voice level. “I have to consider these possibilities because whether I like it or not, I’m going to have to contend with them. You think Turner’s just gonna let it go if I quit and a week later he finds out that I’m still staying at your house? He won’t.”

He leans towards her. “There is nothing that he can do to you that I can’t protect you from.” He says it so fiercely that Beth is almost taken aback. “There is nothing that anyone in that Bureau can do to you. I won’t let them.”

“So then what? I come back here, go to work at the bar?”

Rio shakes his head. “Shutting down the bar.”

“What?”

“Been ramping it down lately. Teri’s retiring, sold the business to someone else. I think they’re planning to keep the staff on, but my deal with them is over.” Rio shrugs a shoulder. “It was time.”

“The fact remains - I need to do something,” Beth returns to her point.

Rio sets down his mug. “You’ve spent your whole life needing to do something, haven’t you.” It isn’t a question. He reaches over, pressing his hand over hers. “Always worrying about keeping your head above the water, taking care of your sister, yourself. You don’t need to do that anymore.”

Beth stiffens. “What, you want me to become your live-in trophy girl?”

“No,” he says, “but I want you to have some time to think about your next thing. I’m saying that you don’t need to jump from lifeboat to lifeboat. You said you wanted to open a bakery.”

“Yeah, when I was a kid!” Beth reminds him.

“But you could,” Rio says. “You could make that happen for yourself now if you wanted it. I’m not saying I’ll give it to you. I’m saying that I’ve got you. I’ll take care of you while you take some fucking time to think about yourself for once. Whether that’s here or somewhere else, I’ll help you, Elizabeth.”

She looks at him, unable to understand why he would be willing to go to those lengths for her. “Why?” she asks. “Why would you help me? I’m not giving you information about the -“

Rio laughs. “It’s got nothing to do with the fucking Bureau,” he tells her. “It’s got everything to do with you. Fuck, haven’t you figured out by now that there’s nothing I wouldn’t do for you?”

Beth shakes her head. “You don’t even know me.”

“Don’t I?”

“Rio, it’s going to get complicated.” Beth chews on her lip for a beat. “Everything’s going to be so fucking complicated.”

“But it’ll be worth it, yeah?” Rio squeezes her hand. “I want to get to know the rest of you. Want you to introduce me to your sister. Want you to spend more time with my son. Come home late at night knowing that you’re asleep in my bed. Want to wake up with you. I want all that, but I can’t decide for you. You gotta decide whether it’s worth it to you. If it isn’t,” he glances away for a second, the only sign that he doesn’t like that option, “then we go our separate ways.”

“And I just believe that you’ll be willing to let that happen?” Beth asks.

“We gotta have trust, you and me. I trust that you aren’t gonna sell me out to the feds. You trust that I’m not gonna let anyone know what happened with Noah,” he days.

Beth stiffens. “So you have proof of that just hiding around somewhere, huh?”

“I don’t have a whole lot of reasons to trust you at the moment,” Rio laughs. “We’ll see what happens.”

Conversation dies down after that and eventually Rio goes back to his computer. When Beth gets up to leave, he glances up again. “You don’t have to go,” he says.

“I know,” Beth tells him. “I want to shower.”

She’s just stepping into the shower when he comes into the bathroom after her. “Joining me?” Beth asks.

“Nah,” Rio says, taking a seat on the counter. “Just making sure you’re not taking things into your own hands.”

Beth feels hot. She’d been planning on doing exactly that. Pursing her lips, she turns the temperature down, making him laugh.

As he watches, Beth soaps up a cloth and starts to wash her arms, her shoulders, her neck. She keeps her back to him as she does it. When she gets to her breasts, she turns slightly, arching her back so that it’s extra obvious what she’s doing.

Making eye contact with Rio, she draws the cloth down her body until it’s between her legs. He sucks his lip in between his teeth and worries at it, eyes following her hand.

Beth draws it out, washing every inch of her skin carefully. By the time that she’s finished, she can easily make out Rio’s erection in the sweats that he had taken the time to change into.

Stepping out of the shower, Beth picks up the towel she’d set out for herself. She wraps it around her back, but doesn’t cross it at the front as she walks to where he’s sitting, reclined against the mirror. She sets her hand over him, enjoying the way that he twitches under her palm.

“Let me guess,” Beth says, “you get to come.”

He smiles, touching her chin. “You do too, baby, you just gotta be honest with yourself.”

She decides that it’s best if she doesn’t sleep in his bed that night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to medievalraven and neveroffanon who beta'd this and to everyone reading and leaving comments! Title is a line from Point Break.
> 
> As previously mentioned, it's all written and I'll be posting new chapters once a week. Some chapters will have more specific warnings in the notes, so please keep an eye on them. I’ll be adding to the tags as well. If there's ever anything that you feel I should also be warning or tagging for, please let me know.


	16. Bug

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rio helps Beth make some moves.

Beth isn’t entirely sure who the woman sitting at Rio’s table with him is, other than that she’s wealthy enough to wear an all white suit.

They both look up as she joins them.

“There’s coffee,” Rio says.

She glares at him over the woman’s head. He could have told her that someone was going to be coming over. Dressed in her pajamas, she feels out of place. She pours herself a cup and then goes to the table, waiting for him to explain what’s going on.

“You serious about quitting?” he asks.

Beth nods slowly.

It earns her a smile, his hand reaching out for hers. “This is Gretchen Zorada. She’s a lawyer and she’s gonna go over how that’s gonna happen with you.”

Beth looks at Gretchen Zorada. “Why?” she asks Rio quietly.

“It’s likely that the Bureau will be decidedly unimpressed by you not only leaving, but seeming to defect to Rio’s side,” Zorada answers. “If you don’t do this right, they might come after you for all kinds of nasty little things. Obstruction, for example.”

“Gretchen,” Rio says, sounding amused and exasperated, “this is Elizabeth.”

Apparently Gretchen Zorada doesn’t care about pleasantries because she dives right in, asking Beth about her service record.

Beth feels uncomfortable at first, saying this around Rio. He picks up on it and stands. “I’ll just be in the living room,” he says, bending to kiss her temple, “in case Gretchen gets too mean.”

It’s a little easier after that, even though she’s pretty sure that he can still hear her. She explains her current job title, confirms that she’s signed a slew of contracts designed to protect the Bureau.

“That won’t be an issue,” Gretchen assures Beth. “Just don’t tell Rio or others anything that would be protected under non-disclosure agreements until after you’ve left.”

“Pretty sure I’m still gonna be bound by those agreements,” Beth says.

Gretchen shrugs. “Maybe. But they’re going to ask you if you’ve broken them on your way out the door. The less you have to lie, the better. You don’t want to incriminate yourself.”

Beth laughs softly. Incriminate herself, right. As if she hadn’t done that already.

“Of course,” she says to Gretchen, who is clearly waiting for a response. “What should I do?”

She expects it to take hours, discussing this all with Gretchen, but it doesn’t. Something that had seemed so thorny and unmanageable to Beth was apparently not a problem for the lawyer. When she mentions it, the other woman shrugs.

“You aren’t the first federal agent to quit in somewhat murky circumstances. Just don’t make my job harder,” she says as she gathers her things.

“How expensive is she?” Beth asks Rio when he comes back from taking Gretchen to her car.

“Enough that she’s worth every damn penny,” he replies. “Don’t worry about it.”

“How much am I going to owe you when this is over?”

“Nothing.” Rio rejoins her at the table. “You’re not going to owe me a thing for this.”

Beth sits back in her chair, crossing her arms. “Why not?”

He sighs. “Consider it payment.”

“For what?”

Rio studies her, apparently evaluating whether or not he’s willing to give her an honest response. “Noah.”

Except he’d caught Noah on camera.

“How did I help with that?” she asks him, fairly certain that she’s not going to like the answer. “You had him without me telling you.”

“Maybe,” he shrugs. “But he was sloppy. If I had to guess, it was because of you. Your boss pushing him because of where you’d ended up. It made it easier for me. Who knows how much that’s going to save me in the end. Money, time, freedom. Any of it.”

“So you’re willing to pay lawyer’s fees for me?”

Rio jerks his chin up.

“And if I refuse?”

“Then I’ll tell you not to be stupid and accept the gift,” he says.

Beth shakes her head. “I don’t want to owe you, Rio. You forget, I’ve seen what happens to people who owe you, who cross you. The ones that get found, at least.”

There’s a hint of surprise in his expression, like he hadn’t considered that as a federal agent, she would have seen evidence of some of his worst crimes.

“Not gonna say anything?” she asks.

“What do you want me to say?” he shoots right back. “Tell you that I was a different man, maybe. Say I wash my hands of that part of my business. Hmm? What story you want to hear?”

Beth gets up. “I don’t want to hear a story,” she says as she rinses out her mug. “I want to know what I’m going to owe you so that if I can’t pay up, I don’t wind up like any of those people.”

He doesn’t respond. She doesn’t even hear him moving, all of a sudden he’s pressed against her back, hands shutting off the water before settling on the counter on either side of her waist.

“You don’t trust me when I say that nothing’ll happen?”

She looks down at the draining water. “Things change. I didn’t think that my ex would say that I owed him. Since he paid most of the bills when I was at the academy. Only then I’m getting divorced and it’s being thrown in my face like a loan I didn’t know I’d taken out.”

“Turn around,” he says.

Beth does.

“I’m not him. Even if things change, if you and me don’t work, slate’s clean. It’s the only way this works.” He looks down at her and lowers his head so that his forehead is pressing against hers. “We aren’t a set of scales, Elizabeth. Love don’t work like that.”

Beth stiffens, pulls her head back to stare at his eyes. Love. He’d just used the word love. Months ago, she might have asked if a man like him knew that emotion. Now, she knew that he did. And not just because of how he had been with Marcus, although that had been more than enough proof on it’s own.

She’d witnessed his genuine affection for people. Had felt it herself.

“I’ve been lying to you, Rio,” she reminds him quietly.

“I know.” He kisses the tip of her nose. “I haven’t exactly been honest with you all the time either.”

Beth bites her lip. “But is it enough?”

“Guess we’ll find out, huh,” he says. He pulls her into his chest and starts to rub his hand up and down her back. “Tell me about your sister.”

Beth’s head, turned so it doesn’t get smushed against his chest, is facing towards the fridge. The pictures that Marcus had drawn while he was here are still up. The ones that Rio had helped him with. The one that has her in it. He had passed his marker to Beth and asked her to write her name, so she had written it carefully at the top. Underneath, Marcus had copied it out again, although much less neat.

“Her name’s Annie. But I’ve got a best friend too, Ruby. She’s basically our other sister.” Beth wraps her hands around Rio, settling against his lower back. “She’s expecting.”

“Yeah? Her first?”

Beth shakes her head. “Second.”

“You can visit her soon,” Rio says and Beth smiles at how he seems to have honed in immediately on what had been troubling her. “Bet you gotta plan a baby shower and shit too.”

She laughs. “Ruby will say that she doesn’t want one, although that’s mostly because her mother-in-law will try to hijack it like she did with the one for Sara.”

“That her first?”

“Yeah,” Beth says. “Annie has one too, turning six soon.”

Rio hums. “She musta been young.”

“Seventeen,” Beth tells him.

“That why you’re so good at mama-ing?” he teases, squeezing her a little.

Beth pulls her head away from his chest. “That’s debatable,” she tells him, letting her arms fall, “considering I was Annie’s guardian when she got pregnant.”

“You ever get a chance to be a kid?” Rio asks, not attempting to stop her from stepping out of his embrace. “Or have you always been taking care of other people?”

She doesn’t answer that, which is probably answer enough. She puts her glass in the dishwasher.

“You -“ he hesitates.

Beth stops fiddling with the placement of the cups and lifts her head.

“You don’t have to do that alone,” he says. “I know you don’t want to let other people take care of you, that’s too much for you, but they can help. I can help.”

She nods. “I know.”

———————————————————

It’s awkward, being around Rio in the aftermath of it all. Beth keeps expecting Rio to look at her with suspicion or disgust, but he seems to have simply absorbed this information about her like it’s nothing. Like he’d learned her favourite pizza toppings.

He hadn’t said a thing about her staying in the guest bedroom, but before he leaves that evening, he brushes her hair out of her face and kisses her.

“You don’t have to stay here, you know,” he says. “You’re allowed to go out, do whatever the fuck you want, go to your place if you feel more comfortable there. I don’t want you to feel like you gotta prove yourself to me by making yourself a prisoner.”

“Okay,” Beth replies. She’s not entirely sure where she would go. At least tonight. In the morning, she’ll go to the field office and hand in her notice. Once that’s done, she can visit Annie and Ruby.

“If you aren’t comfortable around me, you can keep staying in the guest room, but don’t do it on my account. I want you in my bed, if you want to be there.”

Beth meets his eyes and there’s a level of vulnerability there that she doesn’t think she’s seen on his face before. She nods. “Stay safe,” she tells him, making him smile.

“I will,” he laughs, heading down the stairs to the garage.

When she goes back upstairs, she realizes that the office door isn’t locked.

As far as tests go, it’s painfully obvious. Beth shakes her head, then goes in and gets a book to take to her room. She’s tried watching TV but it seems like everything these days was either the news or cop shows. Picking up a novel seems like a safer choice than either of those.

Besides, she has some thinking to do - about which bed she’s planning to go to sleep in that night. She’s not going back to the apartment. That place has very little meaning to her and she wouldn’t put it past Turner to have bugged it. Seems like something that he’d do. One more failsafe to protect his investment.

That’s what she was, really. An investment. Of time, budget, effort. They wouldn’t want to lose her, especially Turner.

Beth manages to bury her head in the book for a while, although it’s a bit of a struggle for her to stay focused.

With a huff, she gets up and goes to Rio’s bedroom and through to his bathroom. There’s a big bathtub in there. She’s never seen or heard Rio use it, but she’s been dying to, so she snoops through the cabinets - pushing aside a rather robust first aid kit, a lot of towels, his razors, soaps, lotions until she finds a packet of bath salts.

If anything in his house ever got dusty, this would have been. But it still smells faintly of lavender, so Beth starts the water and pours the whole thing in as it fills up with hot water.

It feels _nice_ , just lying there while the heat and bath salts work their magic on her tense shoulders. Maybe she should make an appointment for a massage.

The water is starting to cool when she hears steps in the bedroom and lifts her head in time to see Rio stand in the doorway of the bathroom.

“Done for the night?” she asks.

He nods.

“Must be nice working such short shifts,” she teases.

Rio chuckles. “Got an in with the boss,” he responds, bending to pull off his socks before walking onto the tiled floor of the bathroom. “Besides, you know that ain’t the only work I do in a day.”

“I know,” Beth says. “Do you ever use this bathtub?”

“Like once,” he replied. “Not good at relaxing like this.”

“You should try it some time,” Beth tells him as he kneels next to the tub. “It’s nice.”

He looks up and down her body and when his eyes come back to her face, he’s grinning. “I could be convinced.”

“I used your bath salts, I hope that’s ok.”

He nods, grin turning a little gentler. “Yeah. I’m gonna be honest, I didn’t even know I had any.”

Beth giggles and pushes herself more upright, although it also lifts her breasts out of the water, drawing Rio’s gaze back down. “You only had one thing of them, but I’m pretty sure that they’re old. Still worked though.”

He hums. “You smell nice,” he says, reaching one hand over the edge of the tub to slice through the water. “You always smell nice.”

She gives him a look. “Even after a shift at the bar when I’ve spilled beer on my shirt and I’m all sweaty and -“

He’s laughing as he grabs her thigh under the water and squeezes. “I liked it when that happened too, because then you’d go shower and you’d come out looking all wet, skin scrubbed clean, smelling like me.”

Beth sighs, leaning her head against the wall and letting herself slip down a little again. “So you’re one of those, huh?”

“One of what?” Rio asks, his fingers rubbing the inside of her thigh softly.

“Possessive types,” Beth says, closing her eyes.

“Because I like it when my girl smells like me?” He sounds incredulous.

“Is that what I am?” Beth doesn’t open her eyes. “Your girl?”

He’s quiet for a minute, though his fingers don’t stop moving. “I don’t know what else to call you. Works for now, doesn’t it?”

“I suppose. That make you my man?”

His chuckle is nearly inaudible, but in the quiet room, she can hear it. “Works for me.”

His answer surprises her enough to make her open her eyes to look at his face. He looks earnest.

“You drive me crazy,” he practically whispers. “Do things for you that I wouldn’t be willing to even consider for anybody else. But for you? I’m happy to do ‘em. You know how fucking much that scares me?”

Beth swallows.

“Never had that for anyone,” he goes on.

“I haven’t either,” Beth admits. “Well, my sister,” she adds as a qualifier, making him smile. “But it wasn’t like this before with anybody. I - I can’t tell if it’s real or if it’s just a side-effect of the situation that we’re in. What if we feel different once I quit?”

“That’s always the gamble, isn’t it?” Rio asks. “You made it with your ex-husband and it didn’t work out, but that doesn’t mean that it’ll never pay off.”

He takes his hand off her thigh and lifts it out of the water, coming to rest on the side of her neck.

“Just gotta decide what you’re gonna do about it,” he tells her. “You take the gamble or you don’t.”

Something that Beth hasn’t thought about in years comes to the forefront of her mind and she has to smile.

“What?” Rio asks.

“Alea iacta est,” she says.

He just lifts an eyebrow.

“I minored in history at university,” she tells him.

“You went to school?”

Beth nods. “Anyway, during the Roman civil war between Julius Caesar and Pompeii, Caesar crossed the Rubicon - a river - with the Roman army. It was something that had been expressly forbidden. But he did it and once they were on the other side, he said, “Alea iacta est.” The die has been cast.”

“You saying that you already made your decision?”

“Didn’t I?” Beth says, looking up at the recessed lighting above the tub. “Haven’t I kept making it at every step of the way, every time that I’ve picked you? Helped you? Defended you? Protected you.”

His thumb settles over her artery, pressing enough for him to feel her pulse. She can feel him staring at her, but doesn’t want to meet his eye, not right now. Not in this moment.

“Come to bed when you’re done.” He presses just a little bit harder before letting go and standing, going back to the bedroom.

She can hear him taking off his clothes, going into the closet. He comes back in to brush his teeth as Beth is getting out of the tub. She takes her time getting ready for bed - flossing and brushing her teeth, plucking an eyebrow hair that’s been bothering her every time that she spots it in the mirror.

Rio doesn’t say anything, just kisses her bare shoulder and goes back to the bedroom.

She doesn’t know if he’s waiting for her. Maybe sitting up in the bed, checking stuff on his phone. Or maybe the phone’s away and he's just watching the door. Maybe he’s lying down, getting ready to sleep. There’s no way of knowing which one it is until she goes in there.

Finally, she picks up the t-shirt she’d stolen from Rio to sleep in and slips it over her head, pulling it down around her bare hips. She turns off the bathroom light on her way out and the bedroom is already dark, but she knows where the bed is, doesn’t even bump into it, just climbs on. She goes to the side that she’d been sleeping in and slides under the covers, unsurprised to find that Rio’s in the middle of the bed, rather than his own side.

He kisses her, though he pauses for a second with his lips hovering over hers to see if she has any objections.

Beth doesn’t think she could come up with a genuine sounding no even if she tried. And she doesn’t want to try. Doesn’t want to say no.

So after a moment, she pushes at him until he draws back, but before he can think that it’s because she doesn’t want him, Beth nudges him onto his back and slides over until she’s on top of him, taking over the kiss.

Rio groans at the first touch of her lips, then again when he discovers that she’s not wearing any underwear beneath his shirt. She kisses him like it’s a prelude to something else or like they’re sealing a pact. Rio gives as good as he gets, his big hand halfway up the back of her stolen shirt to rest on her back holding her close. Not that Beth is trying to move away.

She wants him. More than she’s wanted anything for herself in a long time.

Rio’s the one to end the kiss, turn it gentle. “Not yet,” he says when he pulls away, the hand not on her back pushing her hair back even though he can’t really see her face well anyways.

Those two words hurt more than she would have expected.

“Still think I’m lying to you?” Beth asks after she swallows past the sudden dryness in her throat.

“No,” he says, firm.

“To myself?”

“No. But you’re still a federal agent tonight and -“ he doesn’t finish his thought.

“You don’t want it to be like that,” Beth concludes.

She thinks he nods.

“Not the first time.”

Beth sighs and kisses him again, but it’s a good night kiss and she slides off of him when it’s done. She doesn’t go far, he’s already wrapping his arms around her waist and rolling after her so that they can spoon.

She smiles.

“Goodnight,” she says.

He doesn’t reply, just kisses the back of her head and tightens his arm around her.

————————————————

In the morning, Beth gets ready to go into the office as Rio watches her dress from his position on the bed.

“What?” she asks.

He chuckles. “Never seen you dressed like this,” he says. Which is true. Beth’s not really one for pantsuits if she’s not going into the office or to court.

“It doing it for you?”

“Yeah.”

Her head whips around so that she can stare at him and finds him grinning.

“Thought it was obvious by now that you do it for me, Elizabeth,” he comments. “Doesn’t matter what you got on.”

He levers himself up out of the bed and comes over to her. He isn’t wearing so much as a stitch of clothing.

“You’re gonna do this,” he says, “and then it’ll be done.”

Beth smiles, but it’s a tired one. “Will it?”

He nods, cupping her face and directing it upwards so that he can kiss her. She thinks that he might intend it to be a short kiss, but once his lips are on hers, he stays there, deepens it.

Beth whimpers into his mouth at the feeling of him slowly walking her back until she’s being pressed back into the low cabinet along the wall.

She breaks the kiss, nudging him away.

“You’ll rumple my clothes,” she tells him, slipping away to grab her blazer.

He laughs and walks past her on the way to the bathroom. He stops, then backtracks half a step to palm her hip. “You coming back here tonight?”

She shakes her head. “Probably going to wind up staying at my sister’s or something. I’m gonna go there after the office.”

Rio nods. “You got this.” With a squeeze, he’s gone and Beth finishes getting ready and leaves while he’s still in the shower.

The drive to the field office is nerve wracking and by the time she arrives, she feels on edge. Shutting her eyes, she takes a deep breath in, then lets it out slowly.

It’s almost done. She’s almost done.

She opens her eyes and gets out of the car, making sure that she has her ID hanging from her lapel.

There’s others in the elevator with her, some that she recognizes and who clearly recognize her, giving her long looks. None of them say anything.

Beth gets out at HR and can see Phoebe waiting outside an office.

“What’s this about?” Phoebe asks as soon as she spots Beth, looking around like she’s expecting to find the answer in their surroundings.

Beth just shakes her head.

“What are you about to do?” Phoebe hisses.

Before she can reply to that, two people step out from a room.

“I’m Ginny, HR,” the woman introduces herself, “and this is Jeremy from legal.”

Beth nods.

“We’re just waiting on -“ Ginny stops talking as the elevator dings behind Beth. She imagines it’s Turner and she’s right. “Good, we’re all here. Come in.”

Beth almost laughs at the round table in the meeting room. Nothing in the Bureau is random, so she imagines that this type of table was chosen to try to convince the people sitting at it that there are no sides. Probably supposed to bring everyone together.

Ginny holds up a recorder. “We’ll be recording this conversation. Should any classified information that’s above standard Bureau clearance be shared, the recording will be classified accordingly. If everyone could identify themselves.”

They go around the table, each stating their name and job title for the record.

“You were vague about what this meeting was about,” Ginny says after, steepling her fingers and leaning over the table. “We can’t proceed with that information, Agent Boland.”

“I’m tendering my resignation, effective immediately.”

“You cannot quit,” Turner snaps. Phoebe shifts in her seat.

“Yes, I can,” Beth responds. She’s glad that she asked for others to be present at this meeting, people who Turner can’t make do his bidding. “This case has been difficult and was made even more so when it became clear that I was not operating with all of the necessary knowledge to do my job.”

The HR rep looks uncomfortable and the Bureau’s in house legal representation is eyeing her like he wants to make a meal out of her.

“Agent Turner deliberately withheld information from me, putting me in clear and direct danger. I’ve been advised that should it become necessary, I can pursue action against him,” Beth says clearly, locking eyes with the man from legal. _I’ll go quietly_ , she’s saying, _unless you try to hold onto me_.

“I had reason not to trust you, Agent Boland,” Turner says, leaning across the table towards her. “And it looks like I was right.”

Beth calmly shifts her gaze to him. “Are you familiar with the concept of the self-fulfilling prophecy, James?”

He blinks, not expecting the change in subject.

“You assume that there’s going to be a certain outcome, so you take steps to limit the damage that would come about in the wake of said outcome. Only those steps are what makes it come true.” Beth meets his gaze squarely, not planning to back down. “You didn’t trust me, putting me at risk, making me rethink what my place here is. And now I’ll be leaving. As I’ve indicated in my final report, which I have here,” she taps the file folder, “the bar is no longer doing business with Anton Rossi. My presence there is unnecessary.”

“What?” Phoebe speaks up for the first time. “Since when?”

Beth shrugs. “I don’t know. What I know is in the report. As I have no other active case files, my resignation is effective immediately.”

Legal nods his head. Ginny does too.

“There will be follow-up paperwork,” Ginny tells Beth, making a note on her notepad.

“Of course,” Beth says. “It can be sent to the mailing address that’s on my file.”

It’s Ruby’s address, one of the few constants over the past few years of Beth’s life. She stands and with a nod, leaves the conference room.

She’s halfway to the elevator when she hears, “Wait up!”

Glancing over her shoulder, she sees Phoebe doing an awkward jog after her.

“What the fuck was that in there?” Phoebe demands.

Beth walks the rest of the way to the elevator. “You can’t be surprised,” she says, pressing the call button.

“I’m surprised you did it now, like this,” Phoebe hisses, stepping closer when someone starts to look interested in what they’re saying. “Turner’s not gonna let that go. You just fucked him.”

“The thing is,” Beth replies, “is I don’t give a shit anymore about James Turner. He can try to come after me if he wants.”

“What are you going to do?” Phoebe asks.

“Right now?” The elevator dings right before the doors start to open. “I’m going to go visit my family.”

————————————

Beth’s too jittery to go see them right away. She runs a couple of errands, swings by the pharmacy, then a bakery to buy enough doughnuts that Annie and Ruby might forget that they’re disappointed she ever left. Or at least the treats might distract them for a little while.

The outside of the Hill house is almost the same as it was before Beth went undercover. Stan’s clearly fixed the eavestrough and the door’s been painted recently. But the rest of it is the same.

She takes a deep breath to steady herself before opening her car door and beginning the slow walk up to the house. She hesitates again before she rings the bell, then straightens up. She can hear footsteps approaching, then the door is opening and Beth’s standing in front of her best friend in the whole world for the first time in months.

“Hi,” Beth says even as Ruby shrieks and drags her into a hug.

“What’s that?” Annie’s voice coming from the kitchen confirms that the two of them have kept up the tradition of coffee dates.

“Beth!” Ruby shouts, already sway-walking them back into the house, squeezing Beth and starting to cry.

“What?” Annie’s voice gets closer, then she yells too. “My turn!” She elbows Ruby out of the way to hug Beth. Ruby wraps her arms around both of them.

“You’re not allowed leaving again,” Ruby says, “because this one drives me crazy.”

“Ruby has terrible taste in movies,” Annie complains. “And she won’t let me put the M&Ms in the popcorn.”

Beth’s crying and laughing all at once, shaking as the two of them surround her with affection.

“Don’t worry,” she eventually gets out, “I’m not leaving again.” She’s able to coax them into letting go of her, moving them to the couch so that they can sit.

“How’s my future niece or nephew?” Beth asks, looking at Ruby’s belly.

“Nephew,” Ruby tells her. “He’s already a hellion and a half, let me tell you.”

Beth smiles. “Good. Sara needs someone to keep her on her toes.”

“I’m already on my toes though, how is that fair?” Ruby complains, taking one side of Beth while Annie takes the other.

“Because I’ll be here to help,” Beth says. “I quit.”

“What?” Annie gets it out a beat before Ruby. “Are you serious?”

Beth nods. “This morning.”

Annie drops her head onto Beth’s shoulder. “I get this feeling that there’s a story there, but I don’t know that I can even hear anything right now, so I’m going to ask you about it later.”

Beth wraps her arm around Annie’s shoulder. “I’ll tell you later. You guys have twenty minutes to catch me up on what I missed. On our shows, not your lives. I don’t care about those.”

Annie thumps Beth in the arm.

Ruby makes a cup of coffee for Beth, adding more hot water to her tea.

“You’re staying here tonight,” Ruby says as she pours the coffee, standing hip to hip with Beth.

Beth snuggles against her. “Of course.”

After a while, she goes to the bathroom. After washing her hands, she pulls out her phone and messages Rio.

_I’m staying with my sisters tonight. Phone’s gonna be on silent._

She turns off the ringer before going back into the living room.

She runs into Stan in the hallway. “Hey, Beth,” he greets her with a smile and a hug.

“Sorry for barging in like this,” she tries to apologize, but Stan shakes his head.

“Nah, none of that. Ruby’s gonna be over the moon the next few days, now that you’re back and she knows you’re in one piece. Although I wouldn’t say no to waffles for breakfast.”

Beth laughs. “I can do that.”

“I gotta get ready for work,” he says, patting her on the back.

“And congrats on the baby,” she tells him, remembering that she hasn’t had a chance to say that to him yet. Stan grins. “I’m sure that my nephew’s gonna be perfect.”

“Stop hogging Beth,” Annie calls from down the hall.

Beth smiles at him and shakes her head before moving back to the living room. Sara, it turns out, is at a friend’s house, but will be coming back by dinner time. Beth is a little bit relieved to find that out. She just wants Annie and Ruby to herself for a little while.

She checks her phone once, after she finishes her cup of coffee. Rio’s texted back.

_Have fun. Take care._

“Who you messaging?” Annie asks, trying to peer over her shoulder, but Beth turns the screen off and nudges her away.

“None of your business,” Beth says, shoving her phone into her pocket and turning her full attention to the two of them.

Annie has to leave to get Ben, but comes back right after. And that had been a bit of a revelation, even with what Annie had been able to tell her over the phone.

“Aunt Beth!” Ben calls out, running across Ruby’s living room still wearing his backpack.

Beth’s already up, scooping Ben up for a big hug. “I’ve missed you!”

When Sara comes back, she’s a little more cautious, but quickly grows comfortable with Beth once again. She looks almost frail and when Beth pulls Ruby aside to ask what’s going on, Ruby slumps.

“We don’t know. Not yet. It’s nearly impossible to get appointments with the specialists that she keeps getting sent to.”

Beth hugs Ruby. “Why didn’t you say anything to me?”

“I didn’t want to stress you out.”

Squeezing her eyes shut, Beth tries to temper her reaction. “I’m always here for you, Ruby. Always. Even when you think I need to be dealing with something else. I’ve still got time and space for you, yeah?”

Ruby sniffs. “When I got to talk to you, I just wanted it to be happy for a little bit.”

Based on her own choices on those calls, Beth can understand the desire. “I’m back. You need someone driving you to doctor’s offices or making phone calls, I’m your girl.”

“I know.”

Annie sticks her head into the living room. “Kids are asking for ice cream and I said yes. No take backs. You want?”

“Annie!” Ruby says, exasperated, wiping her eyes as she and Beth separate. “They’re already getting a sleep-over on a school night.”

“Sara’s in kindergarten,” Annie replies. “She’ll be fine.”

As Beth helps the kids put some sprinkles on their scoops of ice cream, she wonders what it would be like if she brought Marcus with her. Would Sara and Ben welcome him? Would Ruby and Annie, would Stan, if they knew what Rio did?

Ruby tries to insist on staying on the pullout couch with Annie and Beth, but they bully her into her own bed.

“You’re pregnant and uncomfortable,” Beth tells her. “You’ve been complaining about it all night. I’m not letting you make yourself even more uncomfortable just to stick close to me.”

“Then you two can stay here and Stan’ll take the pull-out.”

Beth laughs. “He’s spent a whole shift on his feet. You’d do that to him?”

Ruby sighs. “Yes. It’s a special occasion.”

“Nope,” Beth kisses her forehead, “get to bed, young lady.”

“But you’re gonna gossip without me!” Ruby tries to insist.

Beth shakes her head. “I’m about to collapse into bed. No gossiping, promise.”

She hooks pinkies with Ruby. “Hate you.”

Ruby smiles at that. “Hate your face.”

Beth falls asleep almost as soon as her head hits the pillow, which surprises her. After Rio’s glorious mattress, the pull-out is less than comfortable and she hadn’t exactly had a particularly busy day. It must be the emotional reunion, she half-thinks as she falls asleep.

She wakes up before anyone else in the house and gets started on a big batch of waffles for everyone.

Breakfast with five other people is downright chaotic. Beth finds herself grabbing syrup bottles before they can spill and wiping jam from sticky little fingers.

She’s missed it. Has spent the whole time she was away thinking about this.

But there’s a tiny part of her that feels overwhelmed almost instantly by the noise and movement and constant pulls on her attention.

That part longs for the quiet of Rio’s kitchen as the two of them eat, chatting about their days or just sitting silently in each other’s company. The way that he’ll reach out to touch her wrist or hand sometimes, or the way he smiles when he’s telling a story.

Beth doesn’t want to miss him as much as she does.

She doesn’t want to feel like there’s someone absent from the table, but it’s like he’s a ghost. There even when he isn’t.

It scares her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to medievalraven and neveroffanon who beta'd this and to everyone reading and leaving comments! Title is a line from Point Break.
> 
> As previously mentioned, it's all written and I'll be posting new chapters once a week. Some chapters will have more specific warnings in the notes, so please keep an eye on them. I’ll be adding to the tags as well. If there's ever anything that you feel I should also be warning or tagging for, please let me know.


	17. Spy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Beth is getting tired of holding guns.

Beth returns to Rio’s house in the late morning to find him gone.

There’s a hastily scrawled note that he’ll pick up something to eat and won’t be back until late, so not to worry about him.

It’s domestic.

Next to the note, there’s a stack of papers. It takes her a minute to figure out what they are, but eventually she realizes that it’s information about business loans, licensing, real estate listings.

She snorts. Rio can’t leave anything alone, it seems.

Taking the paperwork over to the kitchen table, she begins to sort through it. She has to grab her laptop to keep notes, but what he’s given her is already fairly well stream-lined.

_Trying to give me a hint about what you think I should be up to?_ she messages him after a while.

About twenty minutes after that, he calls.

“You don’t have to pay it any attention if you don’t want to,” he assures her. “But I’ve helped a few friends sort out the business side of opening up shop over the years. And that help is available to you too, if you want it.”

“If I want it?” Beth repeats.

He laughs. “Can we talk later? I just have a couple minutes and it was faster to call than to text.”

“Sure. Everything ok?”

“Everything’s good, Elizabeth.” It sounds like he’s trying not to laugh as he says it.

Beth smiles. “Listen, I’m in need of some clothing that wasn’t bought for bartending, so I’ll probably be out for the rest of the day.”

“Have fun. You’re good for money?”

“Yeah,” she says. “You do know that until very recently I had a good paying job and very few ongoing expenses, right?”

“Alright, call if you need anything.”

“Bye,” she manages to get out before he hangs up. He has terrible phone etiquette, she thinks as she goes upstairs to shower and put on some clean clothes. She really should have packed some to take with her, knowing Ruby as she does.

She hadn’t been kidding when she told Rio that she needed non-bartender clothes. What she’d worn as Beth Marks, bartender, was pretty much the opposite of what she liked to wear. Jeans were all tight, shirts a little more low-cut than she would normally go for. She was looking forward to owning a sweater or two again.

Rio has never seen her in her normal style, she realizes as she gets dressed after blow drying her hair. What’ll he think? She pushes aside the question. If he’s the type of guy who has problems with what the women he’s with wear, better to know now.

Going clothes shopping feels almost too mundane at first. There’s people around, minding their own business, and going about their days with no concern for the criminal underworld of Detroit. She doubts that there are others thinking about how they’d just torpedoed the career that they’d spent years building.

She buys herself an ice cream cone and sits on a bench with her bags, watching it all. The knowledge that she doesn’t have to go back to Rio’s house and lie to him, to everyone, allows some of the tension to drain from her body. She can feel it still, it’s in her neck and shoulders and jaw, but as she relaxes just a little bit, she can see an end to it.

Beth finishes her ice cream and goes to get a pair of sensible sneakers.

Deciding to avoid rush hour, she heads to a restaurant and has an early dinner by herself. The quiet is nice. She hasn’t had dinner by herself at a restaurant in ages, if ever. There’d always been Annie and Ruby, then Dean, co-workers and classmates.

But there’s no need to maintain a conversation with anyone, to help them decide what to order, to explain the menu to.

It’s been so long since she could just _be_. She walks by the movie theatre and realizes that she hasn’t even heard of the movies that are playing, so she buys a ticket and goes to the movie that doesn’t seem to be a sequel to anything.

The sky has darkened by the time she leaves the theatre to walk to her car. She’s bought enough stuff that she needs to open up the back door to put the bags in the back. It takes her a moment to arrange them so that nothing will get damaged and she’s just moved a shoebox off a pile of clothing when something makes her hair stand on end.

Slowly, Beth pulls her hand back and tenses to move, but there’s something against her ribs and the shock comes before she can twist away.

Being tased _hurts_. She’s experienced it before, but it doesn’t hurt any less this time. If anything, it just pisses her off. She wasn’t paying attention. 

The doorframe doesn’t help matters.

There’s hands on her, then a bag over her head and she’s being shoved into the back of a van. She expects the person that slides in next to her to tie her hands or legs to something, but they just bind them separately. It doesn’t matter though, because her head is pounding from where she’d smacked it on the door.

The bag over her head isn’t completely opaque. Beth can make out the movement of light through the cloth, vague shapes. She knows that there’s two men in the car, but they haven’t said a word since they grabbed her.

Whoever they were, they knew what they were doing.

All of it worries Beth and as she runs through the possibilities in her head, she keeps coming back to the same few choices.

The first option - it’s the FBI. Whether it’s Turner or an official command, she’s being taken in, off the board, however you want to say it.

The second - it’s one of the people that makes Rio have bullet proof glass in his whole house. There’s plenty of them. She doesn’t know all of their names, but anyone looking to make a name for themselves could have seen to it that she’d get taken. She’s Rio girlfriend, nothing more. But she’s leverage, a threat, a warning.

The last possibility that she comes up with is that it’s Rio. It’s over. He’s changed his mind and doesn’t want her around. Has decided that it’s easier and safer if he makes sure that she never takes another breath.

It’s the one that terrifies her the most as the van moves.

They never leave paved roads. The driving is smooth, to her relief. Rolling around in the back as she is, there’s not much that she could do to protect herself against bounces and harsh turns.

The car goes over a speed bump and then descends, stops. A parking garage. She can hear the door mechanism opening up. She swallows.

Whatever this is, she’s about to find out soon, whether she wants to or not.

When the car comes to a stop, Beth tenses, waiting for the driver and his companion to turn off the car and get out, but the back door opens before that happens. There’s rough hands grabbing her by her ankles and tugging her to the edge of the trunk.

Someone cuts the ankle bindings, but there’s already two sets of hands on her, one on each arm and they’re pulling her up. Her legs are asleep and she stumbles as she struggles to regain the ability to stand, let alone walk.

Her foot hits something.

“Up,” a deep voice says.

Stairs.

Beth manages to get her foot up onto the stair, then the next. They don’t warn her at the top of the stairs when they’re done, so there’s a moment when she lifts her foot to climb another step only for it to fall all the way back down to the ground. Her belly lurches and she starts to trip, but the hands on her arms yank her upright and it hurts.

“Up,” the voice says again after a few more steps on an even surface.

This happens several times, but after the first near disaster, the voice warns her of the landings.

Finally, they’ve reached what’s likely the third - or maybe fourth - floor, which seems to be their destination. They lead her down a hallway and through a door before finally stopping, but they don’t let go of her.

“The fuck?”

Beth recognizes the voice and, assuming that her worst fears are confirmed, loses the ability to hold in the tears that she’s been doing such a good job keeping control of.

“Get the fuck out,” Rio snaps and the hands drop away from her, she hears footsteps retreating.

“I’m gonna take this off,” he warns a second before he does it. 

Rio pulls the bag off her head and Beth trembles, shrinking away with him. The lights aren’t bright, but Beth still squints her eyes so that they won’t burn.

He scowls. “They weren’t supposed to do that,” he tells her, reaching part of the way out to her. “I told him to bring you here, not fucking bag your head and snatch you.”

He seems furious, but not at her. He pulls a knife from somewhere, holds it where she can see it. “Gonna cut the ties,” he explains. Beth extends her arms enough for him to get at the plastic zip tie, which he cuts easily.

“What the fuck, Rio?” Beth hisses, wiping away the tears.

“Hey,” he puts his arms around her, “it’s okay. You’re safe.”

“I thought you had changed your mind and you were gonna kill me,” she says, slumping.

“No,” he says once, firmly. “Got someone here we gotta take care of, you and me.”

Beth pulls away from him. “What?”

“C’mon,” he says, putting his hand on her elbow and leading her through an empty loft towards one of the support beams. That’s when Beth realizes that it isn’t as empty as she thought.

Because there, tied to the post, is Agent James Turner. He’s a bit bloody, clearly he’s taken a hit or two to the face.

Beth looks at Rio. He reaches behind his back and pulls out a gun, extends it towards her. It’s like the warehouse all over again.

“It’s up to you,” he says. “Don’t need to be you that pulls the trigger.”

But it should be. It goes unspoken.

Beth takes the gun.

She’d started down this road months ago, even before she’d been given this particular assignment. It has nothing to do with Rio and everything to do with the Bureau.

“Boland,” Turner rasps.

Beth straightens her back. “Don’t call me that,” she tells him, turning her body to face him fully. Rio remains at her side.

“It’s your name, isn’t it?” He chuckles, pushing himself a little bit in an attempt to sit up, but there’s not much he can do, tied to that post.

“What’s the plan, Beth?” Turner asks. “Do what Rio asks you until he’s tired of having a former agent on his dick - sorry, string. He’s playing you.”

“Unlike you,” Beth says. “You didn’t do things like that.”

Turner is taken aback by her response.

“You never endangered me for your benefit. Never put me in a dangerous position because it might result in praise for you. That never happened.” Beth swallows. “Did you tell Noah to give me up if they found him out?”

He doesn’t deny it.

“You did, didn’t you,” she laughs. “If Noah got burned, he was supposed to take me with him. Didn’t matter whether I was doing my job.”

“You weren’t,” Turner snaps.

“I had been,” Beth says. “I was doing everything that I was supposed to, everything that I could. But you’d rather I wind up dead than come out of this with any degree of success. Even if it meant you had to start all over again. I guess I should be flattered. You hate me more than Rio at this point.”

Turner keeps glaring at her.

“Why?”

He snorts. “Why? You weren’t a bad agent, Boland. Fuck, you were good up until about a year ago. But you lost track of the story. Started talking about putting people in rehab and the benefits of restorative justice. That’s not the fucking job.”

“You’re right, the job is to make as many people suffer as we can,” Beth replies. “Who cares whether or not someone actually committed the crime we’re accusing them of - we need them to rat on someone else, so we’ll give it all we’ve got.”

Turner sneers at her. “Then this? I didn’t agree with choosing you as an undercover and I was fucking right. You got distracted by some good dick and you’re ready to sell out the Bureau, your country, whatever it is you have to. And you think you can just walk away?”

“I can,” Beth says.

“You can’t,” Turner shouts. “But there’s another choice.” Beth knows what he’s going to say before he says it. “You pull the trigger on Rio.”

“Why would I do that?” Beth asks.

“Because if you do that, this is over and done with. We say he kidnapped us both, you got the gun away from him and saved us,” Turner says.

A glance at Rio shows Beth that he doesn’t seem at all concerned by this. He’s just standing there, hands clasped behind his back, watching the two of them like they’re playing a chess match, face unreadable.

Is he worried that she’ll do what Turner’s suggesting?

“You can quit still if you want, but you put down a bad person and it gives us enough for a warrant to search his house, find all the shit he’s got, shut his operation down. You can go back to your sister, your friend, just like you keep saying you want to and you don’t do it with blood on your hands.”

Beth laughs. “You think I don’t already have blood on my hands, Turner? Hell, you’ve put most of it there. Eddie? He’s dead because of us and that’s just this case.”

“That was collateral damage,” Turner says, seeming to grow frustrated. “There’s always collateral damage in war.”

“Who are we at war with, James?” Beth asks. “Who are we fighting for? Because from where I’ve been standing, it’s been pretty clear that the truth of the Bureau is that there has to be a war, no matter what. Because if there isn’t, it ceases to exist. So you’ll make one out of anything.”

“He’s a fucking drug dealer, Boland! He’ll turn on you. I saw you when you came in. You thought he was going to kill you. You’re always going to have that worry, you’ll never get rid of it. Always gonna wonder if he’s thinking about how much easier his life would be without you in it.”

Turner shifts. “What happens if you break-up? Bullet in the head? Surely by now you know that it would be the kindest death he’s capable of, but would he give it to you? I bet he’d go for one of the painful ones.”

It pulls at something in Beth’s belly, that swirling mass of disbelief that Rio would be able to forgive her for what she was, that he could welcome her into his life with open arms. The same man who had a traitor’s tongue removed and put under a windshield wiper like a fucking parking ticket, just to prove a point.

Who had shot Boomer without hesitation, without knowing a thing about what was happening other than that he was threatening something that Rio saw as his.

That’s what Jessa had said all those months ago. Everything in his life, he owned, guarded like some kind of king. And she had tried to take from him, even if she hadn’t succeeded. _If you’d ever met the guy, you might understand that it’s pretty much a compliment._

Well, Beth’s met him. She knows him now, as well as anyone can, she thinks. He showed her some of the gnarled up pieces of scar tissue that surround his heart, that have made him who he is.

The gun feels heavy, not because of the physical weight of the thing or the full clip. It feels heavy with the certainty that what happens now, she can never undo, never take back.

She has to shoot to kill, can’t risk conflicting stories that might unravel what remains of her life after this.

If this whole thing has been a series of twisting, intertwining pathways, this is the fork in the road where everything splits apart.

Lifting the gun, Beth swallows and she pulls the trigger.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to medievalraven and neveroffanon who beta'd this and to everyone reading and leaving comments! Title is a line from Point Break.
> 
> As previously mentioned, it's all written and I'll be posting new chapters once a week. Some chapters will have more specific warnings in the notes, so please keep an eye on them. I’ll be adding to the tags as well. If there's ever anything that you feel I should also be warning or tagging for, please let me know.


	18. Coming in from the cold

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The mission is over.

Beth isn’t sure if the hot water’s gonna run out soon. She thinks she’s been in this shower for ages. Every time that she starts to consider getting out though, she becomes convinced that there’s blood somewhere on her. Some evidence of what she’s done and she has to start all over again. She’s washed herself from top to toe again and again.

She takes a shaky breath and shuts her eyes.

Inhale.

Exhale.

Just focus on those two actions, she tells herself. Draw breath in. Let it out.

She’s going to turn into a prune.

The bathroom door must have opened at some point because someone opens the shower door and steps in.

Beth swallows as a pair of hands settles on her hips.

“I don’t know if I got it all,” she admits.

“You’re clean, baby,” Rio says.

She shakes her head.

Reaching around her, he turns off the water. “You’re clean,” he says, pulling her into his arms as she sobs.

He lets her cry, shushing her quietly and stroking her back, until she starts to shiver. Then he leads her out of the shower and wraps her up in some fluffy towels.

“You coming apart on me?” Rio asks.

Beth’s head jerks back so that she can look at him.

“Fuck you,” she snaps.

He smiles. “That’s not an answer.”

“Not a fucking answer?” Beth can hear her voice trembling and she swings her hand, aiming for Rio’s cheek, but he grabs it and pulls it down, trapping it against his chest. “I just killed someone for you.”

He doesn’t say anything.

“My boss,” she says. “A federal fucking agent. And you want to know if I’m coming apart?”

“It’s a valid question, Elizabeth,” he tells her, squeezing her hand tightly. “Regret and guilt can be dangerous things. Are you with me?”

Beth stares at him as he lowers his forehead to press it against hers.

“Are you with me?” he repeats, softer this time.

She swallows. “Yeah.” Her voice isn’t even shaky as she says it. “I’m with you, Rio, all the way.”

He tilts her face to the side and kisses her deeply. “I know, I know,” he says in between kisses.

Beth doesn’t mean to start holding onto him, to push away the towels so that they’re both naked.

Rio pulls away, shaking his head.

Beth’s hands turn to claws, digging into his shoulders. She doesn’t want to wait anymore, doesn’t want to keep backing away from this final step. He knows everything now. She knows everything.

There’s no secrets between them, no lies left.

“Not here,” is what he says after he hisses. “Want you in a bed. My bed. _Our_ bed. And you’re gonna give me that.”

Beth can agree with that, but she still pulls him back for another kiss before she starts shuffling backwards towards the door to the bedroom.

Their kissing turns frantic as he grabs her, lifting her so that he can kneel on the bed and slowly lower her down onto her back.

His hands go to her breasts, but Beth doesn’t want that, so she grabs his right hand and leads it down her body until his fingers come to rest over her cunt.

Rio breaks the kiss, shifting his mouth to her jaw as he pushes two fingers in without preamble.

Beth gasps, which quickly transforms into a moan as he scissors his fingers.

No longer needing to guide his hand, Beth moves her own to Rio’s cock, stroking him swiftly, spreading out the pre-cum that’s beading at the tip.

“Want you bare,” Rio says, his lips brushing against her ear right before he nips the lobe.

Beth nods. “Yeah,” she agrees.

He groans and keeps fingering her as her breathing gets quicker.

As always, he seems to know exactly how far he can push her without letting her come. He stops moving his fingers and just leaves them where they are, buried inside of her as she comes back down.

When she starts wiggling, he pulls them free and lines himself up.

The first time that Rio pushes his cock inside of her, Beth nearly cries.

As it is, she tightens her arms around him and gasps into his mouth as he kisses her.

“Told you,” he says when he breaks the kiss. “It was worth the wait.”

Beth’s not sure that doing this earlier would have made it any less good, but she’s ready to come at any second, just from the feeling of him inside of her.

He kisses the side of her face up to her temple, then comes back to her mouth as he starts to slowly rock his hips.

“Rio,” Beth moans.

He makes a noise.

“Rio, touch me. Please make me come.”

He laughs softly. “Yeah?”

Beth nods.

“No,” he replies and Beth whimpers. “I made you a promise. I said you were gonna come on my cock and that’s what you’re going to do.”

“I can’t,” Beth tries to tell him.

“Yes you can,” Rio assures her, his thrusts becoming longer as he pulls out and pushes back in all the way. “Squeeze me.” She does. “Tight,” he says, although Beth doesn’t know if it’s a comment or a command. She releases with a gasp, then tightens around him again as he pulls out. “Good girl.”

She moans with every thrust as he grinds against her clit.

“I’m gonna get cum inside of you,” he tells her. “So deep you’re never gonna get me out.”

“I don’t want you out,” Beth replies and he groans at that. “I always want you inside of me.”

He shudders in her arms, then seals his lips over hers as he keeps fucking her.

She’s close, nearly desperate with the need to come even though he’s just pushed inside of her.

“Please, Rio,” she begs, “make me come for you.”

He nods, picking up his pace.

Beth’s mouth falls open on a moan as her toes curl and she lifts her hips to meet his, grinding a little more harshly. He takes the hint and starts getting a little rougher until Beth’s moaning his name into his ear.

He doesn’t stop, although he gentles his thrusts again until he too is coming.

She feels him filling her with cum, just like he’d promised her and Beth squeezes tighter around him.

Rio slumps into her for a moment, panting into her skin as he softens inside of her, his cum starting to leak out.

For her part, Beth starts to stroke his back gently until he regains his bearings and pulls out.

He’s made a mess of her, Beth knows even without being able to see herself.

He shifts back, away from her a little, but he puts his thumbs on her cunt and holds her open to his gaze.

Beth whimpers after a moment, wiggles her hips, but his eyes snap to hers in warning and she stops.

Rio’s thumb brushes over her cunt gently, the movement eased by his cum as he paints it up over her clit.

“Rio,” she moans. It’s too much.

“Thought you wanted me to touch your clit,” he says, sounding put together again. Beth gasps, her legs sliding over his sheets as she tries to get a grip on them. “Isn’t that what you were begging me for?”

The next pass over her entrance has Rio pushing his thumb inside. It’s a tease and it makes her moan.

“It’s too much,” she tells him.

Rio shakes his head. He’s watching his fingers again, pulling out his thumb to circle around her clit without actually touching it.

“You’ve been begging me for days,” he reminds her. “You wanted to come, didn’t you?”

She had. She had wanted nothing more.

Planting her feet, she lifts her hips so that she’s practically in bridge pose, but Rio’s hand just follows, torturing her.

“Didn’t you, Elizabeth?”

Beth nods.

“And I said you could come when we dealt with your boss,” Rio says. “We did that. You can come now. As much as you want.”

When he slides three fingers into her and starts to fingerfuck her harshly, Beth grunts, lifting and lowering her hips as she searches for relief. It’s nowhere to be found. Rio is relentless in his hunt for her pleasure.

She comes the second time on her back, then he rolls her onto her belly for her third, riding his hand as best as she can even though her limbs feel like jello.

By then, he’s starting to harden again, so Beth knocks away his hands and takes him in her mouth. She’s done this before, knows how to make him squirm. She wants him to be the one to beg her for a little while.

It doesn’t work. He groans, but that’s the only sound that he makes as she sucks his cock. His hand burrows into her hair, but he doesn’t try to control the pace or push her further than she wants to.

When she looks up at him, he’s staring down at her like he wants to devour her whole. Beth knows that she wants him inside again, so she pulls her mouth away and slides up his body until she can spread her knees on either side of his hips and sink down onto him.

It’s like the night that they were downstairs, when she’d almost let him fuck her before Demon had come bursting in and they’d quickly been derailed by Dags’ wound. Except this time no one interrupts them. She just takes him all the way inside of her, then shivers, pressing her hand against her pelvis, imagining that she can feel him.

“That good?” he asks, cupping her ass in his hands.

Beth nods, starting to lift up a little and sink back down, his hands helping her find her rhythm.

Gripping the headboard, she moans as she rocks back and forth.

“Look at me,” he says after a moment, making Beth realize that her head has fallen back at some point. So she lifts it, eyes going to Rio.

His gaze is hot, bottom lip caught between his teeth. He lets go of it and licks over the spot he’s just bitten.

“Thought about you like this,” he says, hand sliding to her back.

“Yeah?” Beth asks, voice breathy.

He nods. “Thought about you with my cock so far inside of you, riding me.”

Beth moans, dropping one hand from the headboard and touching her clit.

“How good you’d take me,” he says. “How you wouldn’t let go of me.”

She can feel another orgasm approaching and her earlier ones have her feeling raw.

“How you’d grip me,” Rio tells her, hand fisting in her hair, “how you’d moan for my cock and my cum.”

Beth shivers.

“Thought I had a good imagination,” he says, the muscles and tendons of his bicep in sharp relief as he continues to grip her hair. “Nowhere near good enough for you.”

She keeps rubbing her clit, but she doesn’t need to - she’s already coming, gasping with it. She wants him to come too though, while she’s still on top. Wants him to know that it’s her making him do it.

With a little snarl she pushes at his shoulders until he lays back fully and she can curl her hands on his chest for leverage.

He’s close, just needs one last push.

Beth leans forward a little, putting more weight on her hands. “Thought about this too,” she tells him, “even more once I saw you naked, touched you. Thought about how you’d feel inside of me. How your cum would feel slipping down my thighs.”

His jaw tenses, hips still rising up to meet hers.

“What it would feel like to have you splitting me open.”

His head goes back, making his neck stretch out beneath her. Beth leans even further, not even moving much anymore, turns her head so that she can get her mouth on the column of his throat.

“Come on, Rio,” she murmurs between kisses against his pulse, “do it.”

He does and Beth feels him pulse inside of her as he groans, whole body going tense with pleasure and then slack with it.

She finds herself making soft shushing noises as he swallows harshly, takes big breaths like he hasn’t been able to get a proper breath of air in ages.

Slowly, she pulls off him until his cock slips free, making them both moan. Before she can go anywhere, he just moves her so that she’s straddling his thigh.

“Rio,” she says, trying to pull away a little, but he keeps her in place. “I need to clean up.”

He makes a noise that must be a no because he doesn’t loosen his grip. Beth uncurls her hands and starts to move her fingertips back and forth over his pec. Slowly, he stops holding her so tightly.

“I -“

Beth lifts her head to look up at him.

“I don’t know what I’m doing with you,” he says, staring at the ceiling.

She flattens her hand, palm just over his heart. “I don’t either,” she tells him. “With you,” she adds, in case he thinks she means that she doesn’t know what he’s doing with her. “God, I just - I unraveled my life for you.”

His eyes come to hers and he smiles. “I’ll make it worth it for you, yeah?”

Beth laughs and stretches so that she can kiss him. “No checks and balances, remember?”

Rio nods, expression turning solemn again.

“Love doesn’t work like that,” she says, lips just hovering over his. She isn’t ready to say it quite yet. Needs time to be herself again, needs to know him without so many secrets between them. But she feels it already, starting to grow in her, fragile still, but taking root deeper and deeper every time that she so much as looks at him.

She’s pretty sure that he feels the same.

—————————————

_Six weeks later_

“What d’you want to tell them?” Rio asks. “Or what have you told them.”

Beth bites her lip. This is going to be the tricky part of bringing him into her life. How to acknowledge the oddness of their situation without giving them too much information.

“That we met during my investigation,” Beth says. “And I mean, technically you weren’t even the object of my investigation, so I’m not brushing over that much.”

He snorts, hand settling on the bare skin that’s revealed by the keyhole back of her dress.

“They know that I can’t tell them much about what I was doing. They know that I quit, I talked to them about why - the stress, the problems I was having with my bosses.”

“And if one day they find out who I am, what I do?”

Beth opens up the first earring and starts to slide it into her ear. “We hope that it’s far enough down the road that I’ve had a chance to explain it to them. Hope that they like you enough.”

Rio kisses the back of her neck. “Good thing I’m charming then, huh.”

Rolling her eyes, Beth puts the second earring in.

“Sure you want to go out for your birthday?” he asks, hands roaming lower. “Because I’ve got a couple of ideas ‘bout what we could do instead.”

“Yeah, because that’ll endear you to them,” Beth teases, sliding away from his hand and grabbing her lipstick to put in her purse.

“You’ll be plenty endeared though,” he says, straightening the cuffs of his button-up.

Beth laughs, leaving the bathroom. “My thighs are still raw from last night, I think I’m plenty endeared to you already.”

He teases her all the way to the restaurant, escorting her to the room that he’s booked with a hand on her back. Ruby, Stan, and Annie are already there and they look over as soon as Beth and Rio join them.

“Happy birthday,” Annie says, jumping up from her seat to give Beth a hug, eyeing Rio as she does.

“I’d get up,” Ruby calls out, “but that’s a little beyond my power right now.”

When Beth’s finished hugging Annie, she goes to Ruby. “He giving you trouble?”

“Always,” Ruby says, putting her hand on her belly. “I’ll be very glad once this one’s out in the world. At least then when he’s bouncing around, he’s not gonna be doing it on my bladder. Now, introduce us.”

Rio has come a little closer while Beth greeted Ruby, but he’s still hanging back a little bit.

“This is Rio,” Beth says, moving to stand next to him and taking his hand. “Rio, this is Annie, Ruby, and Stan. Plus Harry.”

“Nice to meet you.” Rio shakes their hands, accepting their semi-suspicious glances without saying a thing.

A waiter comes in with a bottle of wine.

Ruby sighs. “We’re gonna have to do this again when I’m allowed to drink that.”

“I’m sure we can figure something out,” Rio agrees. “Even if we have to make up an occasion.”

To Beth’s immense relief, dinner goes smoothly. Everyone’s on their best behaviour. She can see that Annie, Ruby, and Stan are all trying to figure Rio out.

When Ruby asks how they met, even though Beth has already told her, Rio just smiles and puts his hand on hers. “Through work,” he says.

The biggest problem is when dinner comes to an end, when Stan and Ruby discover that it’s already been covered. Annie just grins and accepts it without trouble. But Ruby pulls Beth to the bathroom before they leave.

“That dinner cost hundreds of dollars,” Ruby says, wincing and rubbing her stomach.

Beth shrugs. “Don’t worry about it. It was his treat.”

“What’s he do?”

Beth doesn’t reply immediately.

“Elizabeth Irene Boland!” Ruby snaps.

Rolling her eyes, Beth gives Ruby a careful hug. “He owns some bars and clubs.”

Ruby accepts the answer and doesn’t seem overly troubled when Stan helps her into the car.

“Well,” Annie says, “this has been fun.”

“You’ll have to come by our place,” Rio says, hand on Beth’s lower back, slipping a little lower to rest on her ass every so often.

“Our place?” Annie repeats, looking at Beth.

Rio laughs it off before Beth can try to stammer out a response. “Your sister’s a rare woman,” he tells Annie. “Can you blame me for wanting to lock her down?”

He wags his brows at Beth, making her roll her eyes and shove him playfully.

“You’ll regret inviting her when she gets wine and Cheeto dust on your couch,” Beth warns, but Rio just smiles and kisses her.

Annie doesn’t even try to defend herself, just nods. “See you later?”

“Yeah,” Beth agrees. “Saturday.”

Then Annie’s gone too and Rio’s helping her into his car.

Almost the second that he pulls out onto the street, he starts teasing her. His hand starts on her knee, over her dress. But they reach a red light and his fingertips slip under the fabric.

“Rio!” Beth hisses, putting both of her hands on top of his.

The light turns green and he accelerates through the intersection. “Yeah?”

“Focus on the road,” she tells him.

“I can multitask,” he replies. “Come on, Elizabeth. I’ve been good all night, haven’t I?”

Beth makes sure that he understands what she means with her pointed silence by making a face.

“Okay,” he qualifies, “I’ve been as good as can be expected under the circumstances.”

“And what are those, Rio?”

He changes lanes, tugging his hand out from under hers and moving it back to the steering wheel.

“Didn’t wanna wake you up this morning when I left,” he says. “Then I came home and you were already getting ready for dinner.”

“So?”

“So?” Rio scoffs, shaking his head once. “Means I haven’t fucked you all day.”

Beth shifts slightly in her seat and Rio picks up on it.

“But you knew that, didn’t you,” he says softly. “You been missing me?”

This time when his fingers start to slip under her dress, she doesn’t stop him.

“Thought I’d let the birthday girl sleep in,” he teases. “Guess I should have given you a nice and early wake-up call, tired you out a little more, then let you go back to bed.”

Beth finds herself sliding forward a little, letting her knees spread apart a tiny bit.

“I’ll remember that for next year,” he goes on. “And for my birthday,” Beth rolls her eyes, “I want you to wake me up with your mouth. Can you do that for me?”

She swallows, throat suddenly feeling dry. She nods.

His hand doesn’t go any higher. He’s content to tease her the rest of the way to the house.

The multi-step process of getting through the security measures has become familiar to Beth. Most days she goes through it a couple of times. It feels like routine now.

They’re quiet as they walk up the stairs into the house, then up to the bedroom.

“Unzip me?” Beth asks, looking over her shoulder as she enters their bedroom.

Rio peels the dress off with care, aware that she won’t take kindly to him ripping or stretching it. Beth reaches back to undo her bra.

“Hey,” he protests as he gets the dress over her hips, “I like doing that part.”

“Not your birthday,” she tells him. “It’s mine.”

He laughs, hands squeezing her ass through her panties. “Guess that’s right. What does the birthday girl want?” His hands shift to grab her hips, yanking her back against his body. “Or maybe it’s better to ask where she wants to start.”

Beth shivers, grinding back against him.

“Whatever I want?”

“Within reason,” he amends.

“Reason according to you or according to me?” Beth asks, turning and putting her arms up on his shoulders.

He kisses her. “Tell me and I’ll let you know.”

She laughs and pulls his head down, not that he needs the invitation to latch onto her neck and mouth at the slope of her throat.

Beth feels warm in his arms, loved, as he murmurs words into her skin and his hands start to explore. She lets him take her weight and smiles as he starts to move them towards the bed.

“Mine,” he mutters as his fingers dance over her skin.

“Yours,” Beth agrees.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to medievalraven and neveroffanon who beta'd this and to everyone reading and leaving comments! Title is a line from Point Break.
> 
> As previously mentioned, it's all written and I'll be posting new chapters once a week. Some chapters will have more specific warnings in the notes, so please keep an eye on them. I’ll be adding to the tags as well. If there's ever anything that you feel I should also be warning or tagging for, please let me know.
> 
> Only the epilogue left now!


	19. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's been years since Beth left the FBI and life has settled into something different than she had once expected.

When Beth gets to the house, she scoffs when she hears classical music playing.

“You’re a cliche,” she calls out, bending to get the zippers on her boots.

“Hey!” Demon protests and she lifts her head, surprised to see him standing next to Rio at the counter. “Alright, she’s here to stop you from burning down the house, I’m out.”

“Thanks, man,” Rio says, giving him a hug as Beth struggles to get her shoes off. She passes Demon on her way to the kitchen, batting away his hand when he goes to pull her hair.

“I assume I have you to thank for the food tonight?” she asks him.

Demon grins. “You know it.”

“Thank you,” she says, patting his arm until he bends down to let her kiss his cheek.

Rio’s mixing a salad when she enters the kitchen.

“I’m a cliche, huh?” he teases, putting down the spoons so that he can greet her properly, pulling her into a kiss. She giggles as she sets her hand against the soft wool of the cardigan that she bought him for Christmas.

“Yes,” Beth tells him. “Classical music, candlelight, a meal cooked and waiting for me when I get home? Cliche.”

He laughs. “It’s our anniversary,” he says.

“Which one?” Beth asks. Their actual anniversary is in June.

Rio’s lips pull up into a wide grin.

“Rio,” she scolds.

He bends down, mouth touching her ear. “First time we fucked.”

Beth shivers as his hands grab her ass. “Oh?”

Rio hums, kissing her ear.

“How was work?”

“Good. I brought bread home, as requested. I’m beginning to understand why,” she teases him. “What, you couldn’t con Demon into making you some?”

“Haha,” he says. “Very funny. The guy came in to look at the oven?”

Beth nods, pulling away to pour herself a glass of water. “All fixed.”

“That’s good.” He goes back to his salad, then picks up the bowl. “We’re eating at the table tonight.”

“Oh?” Beth smiles. “I hadn’t guessed from the place settings.”

“Laugh it up, Elizabeth,” Rio said, putting the bowl down and then coming back to the kitchen. “See if I let you have any of the food I spent hours working on.”

“Demon worked on.”

“He helped!” Rio protests. “I’m getting way better.”

It’s true. Rio’s come a long way from his early days of egg white omelettes and take-out. The last time that Marcus had come for a visit, he’d said that if Rio kept it up, he could go on Iron Chef one day.

“I know you are,” Beth assures him, helping him move the food to the table. “How was your day? Any trouble with Kat?”

“Nah, she said to say hi, by the way. And something about bingo night?” He looks confused by the message and Beth laughs. “So what’s that code for?”

“First rule of bingo night is that you don’t talk about bingo night,” Beth tells him, cutting pieces of bread.

As Beth had settled into Rio’s life, she’d gotten to know Kat better. After their first meeting at Rio's party, they'd continued to bump into one another. With her family ties, the other woman knew what it was like to live so close to crime and they’d taken to getting drinks from time to time to complain about the men in their lives.

“Uh huh,” Rio mutters, looking suspicious. Everything’s on the table and as Beth digs in, she can admit that she’s impressed.

“It’s very good,” she admits after her first few bites.

Rio beams at her. “High praise coming from you,” he teases. Beth’s cheeks redden. She’s choked down more than one bad attempt at this point.

It’s easy to fall into their natural rhythm, teasing each other as they talk about their days.

“Got a new fed,” Rio says about halfway through.

“Huh?” Beth’s confused.

“New fed in charge of my case,” he explains. “Looks like Donnegan’s out.”

Beth nods. For obvious reasons, she hasn’t exactly kept in touch with her old co-worker, but Rio had told her when Phoebe got a promotion that had put her in charge of whatever case the Bureau had been pursuing against him at that point. It hadn’t ended well for her, it seemed.

“One day you’ll tell me how you know all of this,” she says, not for the first time. It’s a game they play, her pretending interest in the matter. In truth, she stopped caring right around the moment she handed in her resignation. She has some guesses about Rio’s sources of information, a few faces and names that come to mind when she thinks about it, but no interest in pursuing the train of thought.

“And one day, you’ll actually figure it out,” he shoots back. “Until then,” he pauses, “guess I’m just trying to keep you sharp.”

Beth rolls her eyes. “I’m plenty sharp with the bakery. I had to solve several crises this morning before I’d even had a coffee.”

“Yeah, what emergencies you have this morning?”

She tells him about the over-proofed buns and cookie dough that got made without baking powder. The missing box of chocolate chips from their grocery order.

Rio talks sparingly about his work. Not because of any kind of mistrust or lack of interest, but for her protection primarily. He speaks in broader strokes. He had a meeting. There was a shipment. Someone at work messed up. They mean different things when they come from his mouth.

But she loves him, married him, has a life with him.

After she finishes her last bite, she reaches out to take his hand. Smiling, he twines their fingers together.

“Is there dessert?” she asks.

He nods. “Later. Wanna do something else first.”

“Oh do you?”

He pulls her out of her chair and into his lap, making her laugh.

“And what’s that?”

“I’m gonna fuck you,” Rio murmurs, undoing her pants and sliding his hand down her panties, “until you can’t take any more of my cum.”

Beth gasps against his mouth as she grabs his face to hold him close.

“Oh yeah?” she asks as she tilts her head.

He nods, nipping her bottom lip.

They’d just started trying for a baby after what had been years of ongoing discussions about the possibility. But with the bakery settling into a groove and the sight of the mommy group that had been meeting there every Saturday morning for the past couple of months, Beth had felt ready.

Rio had always been cautious in expressing his interest in having kids, aware of how she had felt when Dean put pressure on her. But he was ecstatic when she gave the go ahead.

Beth moans as he fingers her shallowly, teasing.

“No fair,” she says.

“What’s not fair?” he asks.

“Wanna touch you too.”

He shakes his head. “You can come again and again, Elizabeth. We aren’t wasting any of mine.”

She had never thought of herself as someone who would be into this.

“Fuck,” she moans, a first orgasm hovering just out of reach.

“Want you,” she gasps, grabbing his wrist and tugging it.

Rio resists for a moment, scissoring his fingers and making Beth sigh, but he lets her pull his fingers out of her cunt. As Beth stands to shed her pants, Rio sinks his fingers into his mouth and licks them clean before undoing his button and fly.

She doesn’t give him a chance to get the upper hand, just climbs into his lap and waits for him to hold himself in place for her to sink onto.

His grin falters as he breaches her, but it comes back as she sinks all the way down.

“You feel so fucking good,” he breathes against her cheek.

Beth squeezes around him. “Should have come home earlier last night.”

“Should have kept you in bed with me this morning,” Rio counters, starting to undo her blouse.

It’s a familiar argument, one that makes Beth shake her head and lifts her hips. They both moan as she lowers herself again. Shirt undone, Rio turns his attention to pulling her breasts free from her bra.

“You’re gonna ruin my bra,” she scolds him as manages to get one free enough to bite at her exposed nipple.

“I’ll get you a new one,” he promises, baring the other one and giving it the same treatment. Seemingly content with that, his hands come down to her hips, trying to direct the rhythm of her movements.

Hissing, Beth scratches her nails down the back of his scalp.

He curses. It wasn’t exactly a deterrent, just a reminder to stop trying to boss her around.

“Faster,” Rio demands.

Beth shakes her head, then stops moving entirely. She watches him swallow, sets her fingers over his Adam’s apple and presses when he does it again. His eyes slip closed.

“Fuck,” slips from his lips, guttural and strained.

Another gentle squeeze paired with a roll of her hips is enough to break him, surging up from his chair to lay her out on the table.

“Hey!” Beth gasps. She’d been getting there and he just - Beth wrapped her legs around his hips and held him close

“What?” he asks, sounding a little breathless. “I hurt you?”

Beth glares at him. “I was in control,” she reminds him.

He smiles as he ducks down to kiss her, starting a slow roll of his hips to nudge his cock just a fraction deeper. “And now you ain’t.”

Beth hisses.

“That’s what you get for dragging it out,” he teases, “and trying to play games.”

Her legs slip slightly and he takes advantage of it, starting to thrust again.

“ _I’m_ playing games?” Beth asks, moaning as he thumbs her clit. “Who was it that messaged who this morning, saying how badly he wanted to put his cock in me?”

Rio continues to do just that, working her closer to an orgasm. He won’t be far behind, that is if he doesn’t come first.

“Darling,” he says with a slight twang on the word, “you messaged me right back, saying you felt empty.”

Beth smirks. “Did I?”

He nods, his other hand coming up to pinch her breast. “You still feel empty?”

“If I say yes?” Beth asks, tilting her pelvis so that he’ll be hitting at just the right angle.

“Then I’ll give you what you need,” he promises, thumb straying a little further down so it’s pressing against her cunt along with his cock.

Beth can’t stop herself from crying out. She tries to grab onto his shoulders, but she can’t quite seem to coordinate her hands well enough as she starts to come. She feels Rio’s groan in the curve of her neck as he fucks her through it, falling over the edge right along with her.

When they’re finally capable of breathing again, Beth scratches the back of Rio’s head until he lifts it from her shoulder and blinks up at her.

“Kiss me,” she demands.

Smiling, he does just that.

He helps her get dressed slowly, kissing patches of her skin before covering it up again like he’s saying goodbye.

Although it’s more like see you later.

“Think that did it?” Beth asks.

Rio chuckles as he pulls up his pants and does them back up. “Doesn’t matter if it did or not,” he tells her softly. She lifts a brow at his response. “I’m still fucking you to sleep tonight,” he says, pulling away to go to the fridge and pulling out -

“Is that chocolate mousse?”

“Yup,” he replies, bringing it to the table before going back for spoons.

“And it doesn’t matter if it happens tonight,” he goes on, passing one spoon to her as he uncovers the bowl, “because I’m still fucking you tomorrow. And the day after.”

Beth digs into the dessert as he talks, but rather than eating the first bite, she shoves it into his mouth while he talks. He sputters for a beat, then takes the handle of the spoon away from her and pulls it from his mouth. “Mmmm,” he hums, licking all traces of chocolate from the metal.

“My turn,” she says, poking him with her foot.

“Oh?” he replies, even as he offers her a spoonful of mousse. Beth accepts it and almost moans at how good it tastes. Or maybe she doesn’t manage to hide it entirely because Rio’s gaze sharpens and his lips slowly curl into a grin.

Their evening is quiet, both of them working on their own things as night falls. Beth’s currently knitting a blanket for Sara to have with her on hospital stays and Rio goes to the gym that he’d put in the year before when they’d done some renos.

She smiles when she hears his terrible angsty playlist starts up and shakes her head. It was like he forgot that the door needed to be closed in order for the soundproofing to work properly. Picking up a stitch to pull over, Beth falls into the rhythm of knitting.

She’s so focused that she nearly misses her phone going off, just managing to grab it before it goes to voicemail.

“Hello?”

“You would not _believe_ what happened today,” Ruby immediately launches into a string of comments about her day. Unable to keep count and actually keep up her part of the conversation, she sets down the blanket.

“Oh?” Beth smiles. “What happened?”

Spending so much time at the hospital is wearing at Ruby, but Beth’s just happy that she’s been able to leave her job at the diner to do so. Neither of the Hills had been particularly eager to accept Rio’s offer of the funds to cover Sara’s impending kidney transplant, but they had given in fairly quickly.

Beth knew that they were likely beginning to have some suspicions about how Rio made his money, but she and Rio always made sure that he had just enough of a reason for it that Stan and Ruby could let it slide.

Annie, no less observant for all her immaturity, had caught on as well, but had very few qualms about it.

“How’s Sara handling being out of school?” Beth prompts when Ruby finishes talking about the rude nurse that they’d had to deal with that afternoon.

Ruby sighs. “Don’t even. She keeps complaining about missing math class!”

Laughing, Beth snuggles against the throw pillows on the couch and relaxes. Sara being healthy enough to complain is a relief for everyone and Beth can hear it in Ruby’s voice, warring with the exhaustion.

“I’ll be by tomorrow, okay?” she says when the conversation starts to wind down a little. “Is there anything specific that you want me to bring from the bakery?”

“I would not say no to an almond croissant or three.”

Beth smiles. “Got it. Stan and the kids?”

“They’ll eat literally anything you put in front of them,” Ruby replies. “Pretty sure Harry ate an entire kiwi, skin and all.”

“Eww.” Beth makes a face.

“Better hope you two don’t have a boy,” Ruby teases. “I can only imagine the kind of nonsense that Rio’s son might get up to. And don’t even try to say that Marcus is an angel. He’s an angel because of his mom.”

“You don’t think I’m capable of raising an angel?” Beth shot back.

“You?” Ruby laughs. “Please, if your kid ate the kiwi, you’d be telling him that he’s doing amazing, sweetie.”

“Hey!” Beth tries to protest.

“Wait, do you think Rio’d do the whole protective dad thing?” Ruby asks. “Like don’t even look at my daughter or I’ll bury you alive. That sort of deal.”

“He’d better not,” Beth says, looking up to see Rio coming into the room, sweaty from his workout. “If he does, I’ll bury _him_ alive.”

Rio, his shirt pulled up to wipe at his neck, blinks at her. He cocks his head to the side, confused. Beth points her finger at him and narrows her eyes.

“Me?” he mouths, pointing to himself in surprise. Beth nods.

Ruby laughs. “I think I might pay to see that.”

Beth’s only half paying attention to the phone now though, because Rio’s stalking towards her with a concerning look in his eye. She guesses what he’s gonna do a second before he climbs over the back of the couch and drops onto her.

“Rio, no!” she shrieks right as his sweaty skin comes into contact with her. “Really?”

He laughs as he rubs his cheek against hers.

“What the hell are you two up to?” Ruby asks. “Wait, do I want to know?”

Beth shoves at his head to no avail. “He just came in from a workout and he’s sweaty and gross and rubbing it all over me - Rio, this shirt is new!”

“Alright, well it sounds like you’re about to have your hands full, so I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Bye!” Beth shouts into the phone before Ruby can hang up. “Love you!”

“Love you too,” Ruby says, then ends the call.

“Ruby?” Rio asks, kissing down the side of her neck even as she squirms.

“No,” Beth snaps, “it’s my secret lover.”

Rio laughs as his hands slip up the bottom of her shirt. “You don’t have time for a secret lover,” he says.

“I could make time,” she insists stubbornly even as she arches her back a little.

He changes direction and kisses her firmly on the lips. “Shower with me?” he asks.

Beth nods, wrapping her arms around his neck in preparation for -

He lifts them both up from the couch with ease, making her shake her head.

“Show off,” she mutters against his lips, lowering her feet to the floor so that she can pull away and head to the stairs. He follows, grabbing her hand as he does.

“You like it.”

“I also like Hallmark movies,” she says. “Clearly I have terrible taste.”

Laughing, he nudges her up the steps. “Yeah, you got shit taste in movies,” he agrees. “But,” he says when they reach the top of the steps and he wraps himself around her back, “you got great taste in men.”

Before she can protest, his hand is on her chin, tilting it back so he can lean over her shoulder and kiss her again.

———————————————

When she tries to get out of bed the following morning, Rio wakes up enough to cling to her.

“No,” he declares, sounding like Marcus having a temper tantrum.

“Rio,” she groans, trying to wriggle free. “I have to go to work.”

He grumbles something into her neck.

“I have no idea what that was supposed to be,” she says.

Sighing, he pulls back. “Let’s go on vacation again.”

Beth smiles, following him so that she’s leaning over him. “We just went on vacation.” They’d taken Marcus to Spain and spent two and a half weeks there, just the three of them.

(And a couple of guys to watch their backs.)

“That was nearly a year ago,” Rio says, pouting.

She rolls her eyes. It had been seven and a half months ago.

“This time just you and me,” he wraps his hand around the back of her head and pulls her down, “how ‘bout that? You, me, nice beach, a villa,” he starts suggesting even as he kisses her.

Beth kisses him back.

“Where would we even go?”

“Been a while since we went to Mexico,” he comments, starting to play with the hair that’s fallen down around her face. “Could be our last time without a baby in tow.” He grins widely and wiggles his eyebrows.

“Mmm,” Beth hums. “I see how it is. Do I need to remind you that being in the sun is significantly more fun for you than it is for me?”

Rio laughs. “I dunno, you make a real cute lobster.”

She flicks his side and he makes a noise like she’s wounded him.

“Cold, Elizabeth,” he sighs, “cold. Think about it though?”

She can do that much. She nods.

“Thank you,” he murmurs against her lips.

He lets go of her so that she can get started for her day, stirring enough to kiss her goodbye on her way out of the bedroom. She turns back at the door and finds herself watching the bare skin of his back for a long moment as he buries his face in a pillow.

Beth’s hands itch to touch it and she’s about to deny herself, when she shakes her head and walks back over to the bed quietly.

Rio turns his head towards her and hums, but doesn’t open his eyes. Beth takes a seat on the edge of the bed and sets her hand in the centre of his back, then strokes up to his shoulder and squeezes.

He sighs, his muscles relaxing under her hand.

She stays like that for a moment, just trailing her fingers over his back and smiling softly at him. She’d unmade a life for him in more ways than one, but she hasn’t regretted it. Doesn’t regret the new life that she’s built with him.

Leaning over, she presses her lips to the top of his spine.

“Love you,” she tells him, even though she doesn’t need to remind him.

“Love you too, baby,” he mumbles.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I cannot believe that this is over! Thank you, as always, to medievalraven and neveroffanon for beta'ing this for me. Thank you to everyone for reading and commenting - your comments always brighten my day. I hope that you're all staying safe and healthy and that you have a great holiday season (if you celebrate a holiday)!
> 
> Title is a line from Point Break.


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